Perched on St Catherine’s Down, one of the highest (and most blustery) points on the Isle of Wight, is a medieval octagonal tower, St Catherine’s Oratory, affectionately known to Islanders as ‘The Pepperpot’.
This sturdy stone structure is all that survives of an oratory (or chapel) built in 1328 by local landowner Walter de Godeton. Fourteen years earlier, a ship sailing for a monastery in the French region of Picardy was wrecked nearby, and Walter helped himself to its cargo of white wine. Having plundered church property, he was threatened with excommunication and ordered to build the oratory as penance, including a lighthouse – the tower of which you can still look inside today.
