De Godeton was tried for theft in
Southampton, before a jury from the island, and fined 287 and half marks on 27 February 1314. However, he was also later tried by the Church courts, since the wine had been destined for the monastery of Livers in
Picardy. The Church threatened to excommunicate him unless he built a lighthouse near Chale Bay. There was already an
oratory on the top of the hill, dedicated to
St. Catherine of Alexandria. This was augmented by the construction of the lighthouse, with a
chantry to accommodate the priest who tended the light, and also gave
Mass for those at peril on the sea. Although de Godeton died in 1327, the lighthouse was nevertheless completed in 1328. It remained in active use until the
Dissolution of the Monasteries between 1538 and 1541. St. Catherine's Oratory is Britain's only surviving medieval lighthouse, and the second oldest, after the
Roman lighthouse at Dover. It is a stone structure four stories high, octagonal on the outside and four-sided on the inside, originally attached to the west side of a building; remnants of three other walls are visible. In the 18th century, Sir Richard Worsley of
Appuldurcombe House bolstered the structure by adding four large buttresses to prevent its collapse. Nearby, there are the footings of a replacement lighthouse begun in 1785 but never completed, as the hill was prone to dense fog. Its remnants are known locally as the "salt cellar". A nearby
Bronze Age barrow was excavated in 1925. The current
St. Catherine's Lighthouse, constructed after the 1837 wreck of the
Clarendon, was built much closer to sea level on
St. Catherine's Point. ==See also==