Near the south shore of the Isle of Wight rises the remarkable and picturesque eminence of St. Catherine’s Hill, 769 feet above the level of the sea. It looks down upon the rock-bound sweep of Chale Bay, which has been the scene of many deplorable catastrophes. From its summit the traveller commands a prospect of singular beauty, as remarkable for its extent as for its variety; since it not only includes by far the larger part of the “garden-isle,” but the green masses of the New Forest, the blue line of the misty Hampshire hills, and the undulating range of the coast of Sussex as far as the bold bluff promontory of Beachy Head. It is said that, in an opposite direction, the high lands about Cherbourg have occasionally been seen. On a calm, clear day the island lies at your feet like an open map, and you can trace each bare bold hill; each valley, dusky with its wealth of foliage; each village church and manor-house, girt with venerable trees; each distant town, with its floating canopy of smoke; each stream that trails like a silver snake through the emerald pastures; and all around and about, the mighty ocean, heaving with a flood of glorious light.
On the lofty summit of this hill, one Walter de Godyton, in 1323, erected a chantry, and dedicated it to St. Catherine, who, in the Roman Hagiology, is the invariable patroness of hills and mountains. He also provided an endowment for a priest, who should chant masses, and keep up a burning light through the hours of darkness, for the safety of mariners approaching this dangerous coast. This duty was regularly performed until the suppression of the minor religious houses, when the priest and his endowment disappeared; though the chantry, built of solid masonry, remained, and is still to be inspected by the curious. Many years ago it was carefully repaired, in consideration of its value as a landmark. The foundation of the whole chapel was then cleared and levelled, a process revealing not only its ground-plan, but also the floor and stone hearth of the priest’s little cell at the south-west corner. Its height is 35 feet 6 inches; its form, octagonal.
Almost adjoining stands the shell of a lighthouse erected in 1785 by the Trinity Board; but discontinued when it was discovered, as might at the outset have been surmised, that the mists so often gathering about the crown of the hill would render it of little service.
The dangerous character of the coast, however, was so widely known, that the Trinity Board felt it necessary to provide for its better protection, and in 1838 a lighthouse was commenced on St. Catherine’s Point, at the base of the hill, which was completed in 1840, and lighted for the first time on the 25th of March. Its dimensions are:—From the water-mark to the level of terrace, 81 feet. From the terrace to the top of the stone-work, 100 feet. Height of lantern and pedestal, 1 foot 6 inches. Extension of glass frame, 10 feet. Roof, ball, vane, and lightning conductor, 11½ feet. Height of tower, 122 feet. The diameter of the interior is 14 feet; and the staircase to the lantern-room numbers one hundred and fifty-two steps. The illuminating apparatus consists of one lamp, 3½ inches diameter, with four concentrated wicks, reflected through a lens surmounted by two hundred and fifty mirrors.
St. Catherine’s lighthouse is a graceful structure, and the visitor, comparing it with the rude chantry on the brow of the hill, where the solitary priest muttered his orisons and fed his flickering fire, will obtain a vivid conception of the vast strides made by practical science in five centuries.
A graphic writer[47] describes the extreme south-western point of England, the Land’s End, in the following language:—
“Those,” he says, “who expect to see a towering or far-stretching promontory will be disappointed. We form our ideas from ordinary maps, and imagine England’s utmost cape to be a narrow tongue thrust out from the firm shore, along which we may walk to meet the advancing waves. But we find the reality to be merely a protruding shoulder or buttress of the vast irregular bluff that terminates the county. Cape Cornwall, which looks so grand about two miles distant, appears to extend further to the west than the Land’s End.