Island Places: The Pepperpot

The medieval tower of St Catherine’s Oratory is one of the Island’s most recognisable landmarks. Hanna Prince discovers it’s also the subject of a local legend – but how much truth underlies the famous myth?

The southwestern corner of the Island is a place of big views and bleak beauty: a mix of windswept chalk downland, wooded valley and treacherous, rocky coast. Overlooking all this scenic majesty is the solitary medieval tower of St. Catherine’s Oratory, its winged and pointed outline silhouetted against the sky like a rocket poised for launch. To earlier generations it looked more like a traditional pepper shaker, hence its local nickname: the Pepperpot.

This weathered octagonal structure is all that remains of a much larger medieval chapel complex and lighthouse. Perched atop St Catherine’s Hill – the Island’s second-highest point – and surrounded by nothing but rolling downland, it might seem like an odd spot to build a place of worship. To understand its lonely location, you have to delve into the colourful story of the tower’s origins.

Booze cruise

In the spring of 1313, a sailing ship called the Blessed Mary was wrecked on the rocks of Chale Bay. According to historian S. F. Hockey, royal records from the time showed that the vessel hailed from Bayonne and carried 174 casks of white wine. It was too good an opportunity for the Islanders and the wreck’s surviving sailors to miss. The casks were duly appropriated and sold on – for the sum of 227 ½ marks – many being bought by landowner Walter de Godeton. But this was a mistake on de Godeton's part.

'One version of the story,' writes J. Charles Cox in Isle of Wight: Its Churches and Religious Houses (1911), 'but this part has not been as yet authenticated – states that the wine belonged to the monastery of Livers, in Picardy, who lodged a complaint in France against Walter for what amounted to sacrilege, and to expiate the offence by founding a lighthouse near the site of the disaster, with an oratory attached for a priest to say masses for the souls of those lost at sea.'

The story of the wreck, de Godeton's transgression and the penance he had to pay for it (under threat of excommunication) has become the stuff of Island legend. It’s even the subject of a poem published by Merstone resident Percy Stone in 1912. In Stone’s poetic version, de Godeton didn’t just build St Catherine’s – he actually became a monk and tended the lighthouse lamp there himself.

By day he prays for all mankind,

By night he trims the lamp

On the lonely crown of Catherine’s Down,

Where the mists hang chill and damp.

In storm and stress that beacon bears

A welcome message far,

And shipmen call a blessing down

Upon its guiding star.

And the good monk vows at the altar’s step,

As the flame shines clear and bright,

‘No vessel more on that treacherous shore

Shall be lost for want of a light.’

Untangling history and legend

While this wonderful story of scandal and redress might be true in its essentials, it doesn’t quite tally perfectly with the historical facts. There are actually references to a ‘hermitage’ on the hill before the wreck – a licence of divine service dated 15 October 1312 mentioned the building and noted that it was in need of repair. According to Cox, this suggests it must already have been standing for some time. 'It is impossible to say and idle to conjecture for how long before this date a hermitage and chapel, with a beacon light attached to it, had existed on these lonely downs,' he writes, 'but it seems clear that one had existed here sufficiently long to require rebuilding.'

On the other hand, Christopher Currie’s 2001 archaeological and historical survey of the area records that a confirmation of the construction of an oratory ‘in honour of St Catherine’ was made between 1313 and 1322. 'An undated grant from Walter de Godeton around the same time gives Nicholas, Archpriest of Barton, one acre of land with buildings on it on Chale Down,' he adds. 'Barton was required to take the responsibility of providing the divine office at St Catherine's, plus a lamp at night for the guidance of mariners.'

So, while there may have been a place of worship – perhaps a lighthouse as well – on St Catherine’s Hill before the wreck of the Blessed Mary, it seems that the site’s continued existence through the medieval period really was down to de Godeton's penitent donation.

Lights go out

Over the next few centuries, the tower of St Catherine’s was to operate as a well-known seamark. Cox says that the light 'remained burning, in all probability, night by night, until the accession of the boy-king Edward VI.' By then, he adds disapprovingly, 'the reckless scheme of the dissolution of the monasteries by that avaricious spendthrift Henry VIII had put out the light maintained by the monks of Quarr for the help of mariners north of the Island, and the Council of his son following this policy of greed crippled religion and summarily suppressed a variety of good works... Among other results, such as the extinguishing of schools, came about the loss of this beacon of light.'

While the lighthouse may no longer have been operational, a 1566 survey shows the tower and its adjoining oratory still standing. Also shown in this survey are two 'curious pyramidical piles'. Many historians – including G Dunning, who excavated a barrow on St Catherine’s Hill in 1925 – believe these were wood stacks that fed a defensive beacon. 'That beacons formerly existed on the higher parts of the Isle of Wight is clearly shown in the Inquisition, held at Shide Bridge, in July, 1324,' writes Dunning. 'There were 29 beacons in all – 13 in the East Medine, 16 in the West Medine, the latter including a beacon on Chale Down, watched daily by four men and nightly by two.'

Interestingly, there’s now some dispute about whether the tower of St Catherine’s was ever used as a lighthouse at all – the National Trust suggests that it was in fact a simple bell tower with a beacon alongside. Light or dark, though, the distinctive silhouette remained useful for centuries of sailors. A letter to the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1757 urged its repair on the grounds that 'it must very soon fall at once into rubbish if it is not effectually repaired; and the sudden disappearance of it, before the accident can be known at sea, will probably occasion the loss of more vessels and lives than the most dreadful hurricane that ever happened.'

The construction of a new lighthouse on St Catherine’s Point (one of the first lighthouses in the world to be powered by electricity) may have reduced the oratory’s seafaring importance – but it remains one of the most significant landmarks on the Island. Nineteenth-century author Thomas Barber described the view from its base as 'infinitely rich, and almost unbounded'. And striding the surrounding downs today, seeing the horizon expand towards Portland, the New Forest and the distant French coast, it’s hard not to agree with him.