Island Life Magazine Ltd February/March 2008 | Page 34
life
FEATURE
A history of our
Islands lighthouses
By June Elford
Photo: St Catherines Lighthouse as it stands today.
Inset - The Salt Shaker
By June Elford
P
harology, the name for the study
of lighthouses, originates from the
earliest recorded lighthouse, built
on the island of Pharos off the northern
coast of Egypt between 283 and 247 BC.
There is a pharos at Dover Castle but
after the end of the Roman empire, few
lighthouses were erected and the earliest
medieval lights were made by the church.
Today Trinity House is the General
Lighthouse Authority (GLA) for
England, Wales and the Channel Islands.
Little is known of its early history but
there’s a record of the granting of a
Royal Charter by Henry V111 in 1514
to the Guild of the Holy Trinity “so
that they might regulate the pilotage
of ships in the King’s streams.”
On the Isle of Wight we can claim
to have the only surviving medieval
lighthouse in Britain. St. Catherine’s
Oratory, known locally as the Pepper
34
Pot, stands at the southern tip of the
island on Chale Down, or ‘Montem de
Cheal’, and though the exact date of its
building is not known, records show it
was there in 1312. Looking like a stone
space rocket, the 11 metres high tower
has four fin-like buttresses which were
added in the 18th century to prevent
the tower falling down. Most medieval
lighthouses were lit by an open fire but
St. Catherine’s Oratory’s light came from
a glazed lantern sheltering a small fire
or lamp. The eight small windows let out
very little light and as the tower was often
shrouded in fog, the lighthouse tower
was practically of no use to mariners.
After the Dissolution of the Monasteries
in 1547 the small chantry chapel attached
to the tower was dismantled and the stone
taken away for building purposes. The
chapel was supposed to have been built
by Walter de Goditon as a penance for
appropriating 174 barrels of white wine
destined for a monastery in Picardy on
the Ship of Blessed Mary which was
wrecked off Chale Bay. Though records
show that the owners of the wine brought
a lengthy litigation against Walter de
Goditon and the other men who pillaged
the ship, there is no evidence to support
the story that he built the oratory.
After more shipwrecks in Chale Bay, a
new lighthouse designed by Richard Jupp
was started near the Pepper Pot in 1785
but abandoned soon afterwards because
of the fog and mists that swirled around
the hilltop. Nicknamed the Salt Shaker,
the half-built lighthouse and the Pepper
Pot are today owned and looked after by
the National Trust and English Heritage.
It was another shipping disaster in the
treacherous waters off Chale Bay in 1836
that led to public demand for a lighthouse
to be built at St. Catherine’s Point. Only
Island Life - www.isleofwight.net