The northern side is intensively grazed by cattle, so fertilization and poaching of the soil, not to mention a spell as an artillery training ground, have all but eliminated the natural chalk ecosystem.

The public parts of this prominent headland are owned and managed by the National Trust, and afford views of the English Channel.

The military barracks which once adjoined the monument has been almost completely erased, but there is a substantial fort, now under the ownership of the National Trust and occasionally opened to the public.

In 1545 a French force was intercepted crossing from its beachhead at Whitecliff Bay to attack Sandown by local levies under Sir John Oglander and a skirmish fought on the Down.

The poet Algernon Charles Swinburne said in a letter that he had climbed the cliffs at 17, in order to prove his manhood to his family after they refused to let him join the army.

It was originally erected in 1849 on the highest point of Bembridge Down, 3/4 mile to the west, and was moved to its present position in the 1860s when its former site was used for the construction of one of the Palmerston forts.