What's This Here Then

Mentioning St Catherine's Chapel last week reminded me that I'd intended to post about it anyway, when the time was right - the right time being when there was nothing much else to say!

Ms Kittywitch in Eastbourne wasn't the only one to alert me to press reports of a mysterious discovery at St Catherine's at the start of April. Some while before, the rail line had been closed owing to a landslip. The hill here is composed of relatively soft sandstone, as opposed to the chalk that forms the Hog's Back and the rest of the North Downs ridge that extends through the middle of Surrey, and the heavy rains earlier in the year brought a collapse in the slope right next to the Portsmouth line. While clearing the sand away, workers inspecting the surface just below the hilltop (by ropes, as it was the only way to reach it) noticed a recess with what appeared to be markings cut into the stone. The contractors, Arcadis, called in South East Archaeology from University College, London, who identified a small 'shrine' in the form of a Gothic arch, a cross, initials and other markings, all within a cave which survived to head height but which was probably originally much larger, this small bit of it being all that remained after the railway was driven through the hill in the 1840s. In this photo (from Network Rail) the cave is just below the second upright in the fence, above the railway arch and to its left, obscured by a pile of fallen sand.

I'm not sure how the archaeologists narrowed the carvings down to the 14th century, and the idea that they represents ritual activity going back into pagan times based on the hill's earlier name of Drakehull seems a bit fanciful to say the least. But this is a numinous place: the chapel on the hill, the holy well (of doubtful vintage, admittedly) at its foot. This decorated cave, whatever it was, lies just west of the chapel and there are other caves, including a very dramatic one you can see from the road, burrowed into the friable sandstone. There are marks which suggest fire pits and soot from lamps, and the little arched niche must have had something in it, all suggesting a period of use rather than transient sacred medieval graffiti. Was the cave the remnants of a hermit's cell, or - if the chapel had its own hermit dwelling there, like the one at Abbotsbury likely did - was this some subsidiary and home-made holy place, a further hallowing of the hill?