St. Catherine's Down is a

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Chalk ...

down on the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the largest and second-most populous island of England. Referred to as 'The Island' by residents, the Isle of ...

, National Trust
/ref> located near

St Catherine's Point St Catherine's Point is the southernmost point on the Isle of Wight. It is close to the village of Niton and the point where the Back of the Wight changes to the Undercliff of Ventnor. On nearby St Catherine's Down is St Catherine's Oratory, ...

, the southernmost point on the island. The Down rises to 240 metres at its highest point, between the towns of

Niton Niton is a village on the Isle of Wight, west of Ventnor, with a population of 2,082. It has two pubs, several churches, a pottery workshop/shop, a pharmacy, a busy volunteer-run library, a medical centre and two local shops including a post o ...

and

Chale Chale is a village and civil parish on the Isle of Wight of England, in the United Kingdom. It is located three kilometres from Niton in the south of the Island in the area known as the Back of the Wight. The village of Chale lies at the foot of ...

. Upon the hill is

St. Catherine's Oratory St. Catherine's Oratory is a medieval lighthouse on St. Catherine's Down, above the southern coast of the Isle of Wight. It was built by Lord of Chale Walter de Godeton (sometimes spelled "Goditon") as an act of penance for plundering wine from ...

(known locally as "the pepperpot"), which is a stone lighthouse built in the 14th century by Walter De Godeton. It is the second oldest, and only surviving, medieval lighthouse in the British Islands: only the Roman lighthouse at

Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...

is older. Reportedly, de Godeton was found guilty for having plundered wine that belonged to the Church from the shipwreck of the St. Marie of Bayonne in

Chale Bay Chale Bay is a bay on the south-west coast of the Isle of Wight, England. It lies to the west of the village of Chale from which it takes its name. It faces south-west towards the English Channel, its shoreline is in length and is gently curvi ...

. He was ordered to make amends, under threat of excommunication, by building and maintaining the lighthouse. It was completed after his death, and staffed by a priest; fires were lit in the tower to warn ships of the coast. There was originally a chapel attached, since demolished. There is a Bronze Age barrow near the Oratory, which was excavated in the 1920s. A replacement lighthouse was begun in 1785 but was never completed because the Down is prone to dense fog. Locally the surviving foundations are known as the "salt cellar". A new

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mar ...

was built after the wreck of the Clarendon in 1837 to the west of

at the foot of the

Undercliff The Undercliff is the name of several areas of landslide, landslip on the south coast of England. They include ones on the Isle of Wight; on the Dorset-Devon border near Lyme Regis; on cliffs near Branscombe in East Devon; and at White Nothe, Dors ...

. The River Medina, the main river of the Isle of Wight, rises at St Catherine's Down and flows northwards through the county town Newport, towards the Solent at Cowes.

Hoy monument

The northern end of St. Catherine's Down carries the Hoy Monument.The Hoy Monument
/ref> This was created by Russian merchant Michael Hoy (1758–1828), whose wealth came from trade with Britain, in 1814 to commemorate the visit of the Russian Tsar to Great Britain, hence its informal alternative name the "Russian Monument". After Hoy's death, an inscription was made at the base that commemorates soldiers killed in the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

in 1857. The Hoy Monument was repaired in 1992 at a cost of £85,000, which was donated.

References

Headlands of the Isle of Wight Hills of the Isle of Wight {{IsleofWight-geo-stub

Hoy monument

See also

Further reading

References