The "Salt Pot"

Base of Old Lighthouse on St Catherine's Hill
© Copyright Bob Embleton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

I like strange and distinctive places. So further to Edward Edwards - troubled library pioneer, I just checked out online the location of Edwards' apparently self-inflicted exposure on the downs near Niton, Isle of Wight.  As described in the 1902 Greenwood biography:

The days and nights were getting cold, and he had a fire constantly in his room, which he kept so closely that there was some difficulty in getting him out of it when it had to be tidied. One day early in November, 1885, Edwards said to Mr. and Mrs. Harrison "I am going to Freshwater and may not be back for several days". Nothing was thought of this at the time, as he had often gone away on the top of one of the coaches, and remained away a few days. For some days afterwards nothing more was heard of him, till word was brought that he had been found in a perishing condition on St. Catherine's Down, and was being brought home in a cart. By-and-by the cart drew near, and in it, covered with clean straw to screen him from the curious eyes of the children on their way to school, was Edward Edwards, utterly broken down, with eyes looking wild and streaming with tears, but conscious of all that was going on around him. They lifted him out as gently as if he had been a monarch, dressed in purple and fine linen, and put him to bed at once. There he lay for a full fortnight, nursed with the tenderest care, fed and tended like a child, and during night and day his nurses had to apply all necessary remedies to restore animation to his almost frozen limbs. Edward Edwards had been found in what is known as the Round Tower on the Down. He had been out on the Down without food for three nights and days in inclement weather, and a bitterly cold winter was that of 1885-6. The Round Tower is roofless, and in it he was found, lying on the ground, by a shepherd who was taking provender for the sheep. His hands were stained with dirt, and he had manifestly gripped the earth in an agony of spirit, while crying for death to come and release him from his misery and troubles. During the night the sheep on the Down make for the Round Tower for shelter, and Edwards had been kept warm by them, as his clothes showed. They had evidently kept him warm enough to preserve his life.
- Edward Edwards, the chief pioneer of municipal public libraries, Thomas Greenwood, 1902, Internet Archive ID edwardedwardschi00greeiala

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This structure appears in accounts under various names - including the Salt Pot, the Salt Cellar, the Salt Shaker, and Mustard Pot - all reflecting its relationship to an adjacent structure known as the Pepperpot (St Catherine's Oratory, a mediaeval lighthouse). The Salt Pot was also intended as a lighthouse, but not completed ...

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.
- page 192, Lighthouses and Lightships, William Henry Davenport Adams, 1870

... and superseded by the present St Catherine's Lighthouse.

undated topographical postcard

The Salt Pot appears in old photos (e.g. above) in much the same state as when Edwards took refuge in it. But it's now enclosed and inaccessible due to the building of a radio installation inside and around it (according to Keeper's Log, journal of the United States Lighthouse Society, a radar installation dating from 1952).There are a number of Flickr images, such as this one; the photographer comments on how it "inexplicably" houses radio equipment. When there was a whole down to build on, it does seem rather strange, by modern standards of conservation, for a heritage structure to be commandeered in this way.

View looking northward from the top of Gore Cliff, May 2012
St Catherine's Oratory (aka Pepperpot), left; "Salt Pot" by mast, right

We were in viewing distance in May 2012 - see The road more travelled ... - but it was a monstrously hot day, and the detour up the hill didn't appeal. Next time maybe.

Check out also Stories descriptive of the Isle of Wight:  there's a slight thematic connection, in that one of these inspirational stories, The Children of St Catherine's Chantry, features a group of children sheltering from a storm inside St Catherine's Oratory.

- Ray

Edward Edwards - troubled library pioneer

Small world. Lily at The Topsham Bookshop asked if I could help with identifying the authorship of an anonymous 19th-century volume about the Exmouth area (Devonshire. Containing historical, biographical and descriptive notices of Exmouth & its neighbourhood. Pub: S Drayton & Sons, Exeter, 1868?). A bit of correlation of variant titles found it to be by the librarian and writer Edward Edwards (1812-1886) - a name I already knew vaguely for its Isle of Wight connections: Edwards died in poverty in Niton.

The road more travelled ...

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At the risk of boring you with endless pictures of woodlands and cliffs - skip if you've already reached saturation - I have some photos from May 26th, a windy and majorly hot day when we took the fairly short walk from Niton to Blackgang, at the southern tip of the Isle of Wight. The interesting point is that this route follows the accessible end of the old coastal road between them, which was cut by a landslip in 1928 - the other end is the "Lost Road" I described previously - and goes up over the spectacular Gore Cliff above the landslip.


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You start by following the main road southward from Niton that descends Barrack Shute - alternatively the Southern Vectis "6" bus will drop you at the foot of it. Then you turn off the main road down a lane running south-west - Sandrock Road - which in turn has a branch prominently signposted Old Blackgang Road. Follow this through the woodland until it just ... stops.

At first it's densely wooded on both sides, but then opens out to give views of the wooded slopes on the landward side, and rolling open pasture on the seaward. There are gates with paths to this pasture, which you might want to follow; because the lane is leading to a viewpoint and parking spot at the end, there is a certain amount of traffic on the road.

And at the end is the location called Windy Corner, with this spectacular view.

The chalk cliffs in the distance are those of Tennyson Down, at the western tip of the Island.

Panorama - sorry, I clipped the top of the cliff

The cliff, capped by overhanging crags of chert-studded Greensand, is called Gore Cliff.  The overgrown slopes are the Undercliff landslip terrain; and the large arc in the cliff, and the ridge of rubble below, are the scene of the 1928 slip that disrupted the road through what is now a wilderness. The isolated segment of road - also disconnected at the other end - is somewhere in all that woodland ahead. And bear in mind that this is on the Undercliff: a ledge some 300 feet above sea level, with Gore Cliff maybe 200 feet more above.

The path down to the beach: that tiny thing mid-picture is a stile.

This pastureland, although still a consequence of landslips, is a very gentle contrast to the overgrown tangle immediately adjacent. We didn't go to the beach; it was so hot that 300 feet down and up didn't appeal (apart from which, it's a naturist beach and the etiquette would undoubtedly get complicated).

Looking down the overgrown landslip to the beach

Gore Cliff at Windy Corner

Instead, we returned along the road part of the way, and around 300 metres along, there's a signpost for a path leading to steps up the cliff.

Old Blackgang Road, looking east

Below, an image from 2011 of the "Lost Road": the section of this very same road in the section near Blackgang isolated by landslips decades ago and only travelled by determined walkers. It's quite a striking contrast as the 'post-apocalyptic twin' of the photo above.

Old Blackgang Road - "Lost Road" section - looking east

Part-way up was this stone basin and tunnel; I don't know what these are about. The steps carry on up the cliffside until you're high above the Undercliff and you can see St Catherine's Point lighthouse.

St Catherine's Point lighthouse and Knowles Farm

Looking along the brink of Gore Cliff

Looking down to the Windy Corner car park

It was stunning, if a little frightening in the stiff wind, at the top of Gore Cliff. The path runs approximately westward, with sheer drop to the left and the St Catherine's Oratory lighthouse ( the "Pepperpot" - the scene of Emma MacAllan's The Children of St Catherine's Chantry) up on the hill to the right.

Shortly after, you see the buildings of Blackgang Chine amusement park, and the vista across the whole "Back of the Wight". The path then descends via more steps to the car park and Chine entrance with its well-known giant smuggler.

- Ray