St Catherine’s Oratory was built in 1328 at one of the highest points on the Isle of Wight. It was erected by a local landowner as penance for stealing communion wine from a shipwreck that had been bound for a local monastery.

Known locally as the 'pepperpot' it also served as a lighthouse and is the second oldest such structure in the UK, after the Roman beacon at Dover. The four buttresses were added during the 18th-century to prevent its collapse..