St Boniface Down is a chalk

Chalk

Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is calcium carbonate or CaCO3. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....

 down

Downland

A downland is an area of open chalk hills. This term is especially used to describe the chalk countryside in southern England. Areas of downland are often referred to as Downs....

 on the Isle of Wight

Isle of Wight

The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It is located close to the town of Ventnor

Ventnor

Ventnor is a seaside resort and civil parish established in the Victorian era on the south coast of the Isle of Wight, England. It lies underneath St Boniface Down , and is built on steep slopes and cliffs leading down to the sea...

, in the southeast of the Island, and rises to 241 metres (791 ft), the Island's highest point, 1 kilometre (0.621372736649807 mi) north of the town. There is reputed to be a wishing well on its southern slope, which requires the wisher to climb up from the south without looking back.
In 1545 a French invasion force attempted this against a force of the Isle of Wight Militia commanded by Sir John Fyssher- which allegedly included several women archers- and were routed.
In 1940 the radar station was bombed by Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers, which is reconstructed in the film "The Battle of Britain

The Battle of Britain

The Battle of Britain was the fourth of Frank Capra's Why We Fight series of seven propaganda films, which made the case for fighting and winning the Second World War...

". The top is surmounted by a round barrow.

Fondly known as Ventnor Mountain by some locals.

St Boniface Down is also the name and was the inspiration of a 1956 work by the English composer, Trevor Duncan

Trevor Duncan

Trevor Duncan was an English composer, particularly noted for his light music compositions. Born in London, and largely self-taught, he originally composed as a sideline while working for the BBC...

.

Wildlife

St Boniface Down is home to the largest cricket

Cricket (insect)

Crickets, family Gryllidae , are insects somewhat related to grasshoppers, and more closely related to katydids or bush crickets . They have somewhat flattened bodies and long antennae. There are about 900 species of crickets...

 within the British Isles

British Isles

The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...

, the great green bush cricket.

The area's fauna

Fauna

Fauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale fauna"...

 is also important, resulting in parts of the Down being designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest

Site of Special Scientific Interest

A Site of Special Scientific Interest is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in Great Britain are based upon...

.