The peeping Pepperpot at St Catherine's Hill

The viewpoint car park high above Blackgang Chine is the ideal starting point for this intriguing ramble around the island’s most southerly point, an area steeped in tales about shipwrecks, smuggling and three lighthouses. Before you lies the broad sweep of Chale Bay and high upon St Catherine’s Hill to your right is a curious octagonal tower, known locally as the ‘Pepperpot’. For centuries Chale Bay, in particular the treacherous rocks around Atherfield Ledge, was notorious for shipwrecks and the subsequent looting of desirable cargoes. Violent storms and huge seas drove fully-rigged sailing ships crashing against the cliffs and once as many as 14 floundered in the ‘Bay of Death’ on a single night.

Medieval lighthouse

The walk begins with a long, steady climb up St Catherine’s Hill to the Pepperpot and it is only here that you really realise its significance. It’s all that remains of a medieval lighthouse or beacon and is, equally, a monument to the folly of Walter de Godeton. Its story begins with the wreck of a merchant ship, the Ship of the Blessed Mary, at Atherfield Ledge in 1313, while bound for England with a consignment of wine. The sailors escaped and sold the 174 casks of wine to the islanders, one of whom was Walter de Godeton who took 53 casks. As it belonged to a religious community in Normandy, it was considered an offence to receive the smuggled wine. Following a long trial, de Godeton was fined heavily and as an act of penance was ordered to build a pharos and oratory on the site of an earlier hermitage, so that a priest could tend the light and say prayers for those lost at sea.

The oratory has long since disappeared but the lighthouse, operational until 1638, survives as Britain’s only medieval lighthouse. Close by, at the foot of a modern telecoms mast, is another partially built lighthouse known as the ‘Mustard Pot’ of the 'Salt Pot'. Begun in 1785 to rekindle the St Catherine’s light, the project was abandoned due to cost and the realisation that its warning light would rarely be visible due to fog. It was not until the tragic loss of the Clarendon in 1836 that the present lighthouse at St Catherine’s Point was built.

Cross the road from the car park and climb the steps to a gate. Bear left along footpath C36 towards Gore Down and climb steadily up the grassy downland to the kissing gate near the summit of the hill.

Walk up to the old Pepperpot lighthouse. Ignore the stile by the trig point just beyond and turn left. Keeping the fence on your right, continue downhill to the gate in the fence near the foot of the steep slope.

Turn right through the gate beside a redundant cattle grid and follow the grassy bridleway as it follows the contour around the flank of St Catherine’s Hill to a gate. Continue along the enclosed green lane for 275yds (251m) to pass a stile on your left.

A few paces further on, turn right to walk along the hedged bridleway NT53. Head downhill, the path becoming metalled (Pan Lane) as it enters Niton. At the road junction turn sharp right into the churchyard. (Or turn left, then first right, for The White Lion and some refreshments.) Keep left, leave the churchyard by a small gate and turn right alongside the A3055.

Take the footpath beside the last house on the left and climb up steeply through the trees to a stile. Walk ahead across grassland to the stile in the fence and follow the left-hand field-edge to go through the kissing gate.

Turn right along the coastal path, walk through two kissing gates and soon emerge onto the open cliff top. Remain on this narrow path close to the cliff edge for nearly 1 mile (1.6km). Turn right and walk between fences to return to the car park.