Medieval times

Carisbrooke © IW Tourism

The Norman Conquest gave the Island its most impressive medieval building - Carisbrooke Castle, which still survives as a good example of a medieval castle. After the conquest, William gave the Lordship of the Island to his relative William FitzOsbern.

FitzOsbern began the building of a castle at Carisbrooke on an easily defended site in the centre of the Island. It was a symbol of Norman authority and a stronghold from which the potentially hostile population of the Island could be controlled.

The Lordship was hereditary and the castle remained in private hands until 1293, when Countess Isabella de Fortibus, the last survivor of the De Redvers family, was persuaded on her death bed to sell the castle, together with all her lands and rights on the Island, to King Edward I for £4,000.

This was a particularly significant purchase for the King, because it gave him more control over Island defence - an important issue since the Island was a target for French raids during the Hundred Years' War.

Not that Carisbrooke was much help in this respect: being in the middle of the Island, away from the coast, its garrison could do nothing to prevent raids.

In 1377, for example, a French raiding party was able to devastate Yarmouth, Newtown and Newport before laying siege to the castle. The siege was in fact unsuccessful: the French withdrew after their commander was killed by a crossbow bolt shot from the Castle's west wall.

The Castle is now in the care of English Heritage. Its design is a typical Norman motte and bailey. The motte with its shell keep, the curtain wall, the gatehouse with drum towers and machicolation, the great hall, the two medieval wells: these features make Carisbrooke an excellent resource for a castle study. A model in the Castle Museum, showing the Castle as it may have looked in 1377, is also a useful resource for discussing evidence and change.

Oratory © Martin Williams
www.Island-photography.co.uk

A contrast in size to the castle, a tiny medieval building stands on St Catherine's Hill above Blackgang, about 15 minutes' climb from the nearby car park. This is a medieval lighthouse called St Catherine's Oratory, also known as the 'Pepperpot'. It was built as a lighthouse by a local landowner, Walter de Godeton, after a notorious wreck in Chale Bay on what was known as Chale Down (later renamed St Catherine's down) and was maintained by monks who lived in a chapel nearby.

Yet, after Henry VIII's breakaway from the Catholic Church in 1538 and the suppression of the chantries in 1547, the lighthouse was abandoned and the chapel was soon in ruins. Little remains of the chapel today, yet the Pepper Pot itself remains intact.

Newtown is also worth studying for its evidence of its past as a thriving medieval town. The ancient street pattern still survives, several of the streets now represented by grassy lanes or narrow fields. The town was destroyed by the French in 1377.