Eddystone Lighthouse
The Eddystone Lighthouse is a lighthouse that is located on the Eddystone Rocks, 9 statute miles (14 km) south of Rame Head in Cornwall, England. The rocks are submerged below the surface of the sea[3] and are composed of Precambrian gneiss.[4]
The current structure is the fourth to be built on the site. The first lighthouse (Winstanley's) was swept away in a powerful storm, killing its architect and five other men in the process. The second (Rudyard's) stood for fifty years before it burned down. The third (Smeaton's) is renowned because of its influence on lighthouse design and its importance in the development of concrete for building; its upper portions were re-erected in Plymouth as a monument.[5] The first lighthouse, completed in 1699, was the world's first open ocean lighthouse, although the Cordouan Lighthouse off the western French coast preceded it as the first offshore lighthouse.[6]
The need for a light
The Eddystone Rocks are an extensive reef approximately 12 miles (19 km) SSW off Plymouth Sound, one of the most important naval harbours of England, and midway between Lizard Point, Cornwall and Start Point. They are submerged at high spring tides and were so feared by mariners entering the English Channel that they often hugged the coast of France to avoid the danger, which thus resulted not only in shipwrecks locally, but on the rocks of the north coast of France and the Channel Islands.[7] Given the difficulty of gaining a foothold on the rocks particularly in the predominant swell it was a long time before anyone attempted to place any warning on them.
Winstanley's lighthouse
The first lighthouse on Eddystone Rocks was an octagonal wooden structure built by
The lighthouse survived its first winter but was in need of repair, and was subsequently changed to a dodecagonal (12 sided) stone clad exterior on a timber-framed construction with an octagonal top section as can be seen in the later drawings or paintings. The octagonal top section (or 'lantern') was 15 ft (4.6 m) high and 11 ft (3.4 m) in diameter, its eight windows each made up of 36 individual glass panes. It was lit by '60 candles at a time, besides a great hanging lamp'.[9]
Winstanley's tower lasted until the great storm of 1703 erased almost all trace on 8 December [O.S. 27 November]. Winstanley was on the lighthouse, completing additions to the structure. No trace was found of him, or of the other five men in the lighthouse.[10][11]
The cost of construction and five years' maintenance totalled £7,814 7s.6d, during which time dues totalling £4,721 19s.3d had been collected at one penny per ton from passing vessels.
Rudyard's lighthouse
Eddystone Lighthouse Act 1709 | |
---|---|
Act of Parliament | |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 5 April 1710 |
Other legislation | |
Repealed by | Statute Law Revision Act 1867 |
Status: Repealed |
Following the destruction of the first lighthouse, Captain John Lovett
Rudyard's lighthouse, in contrast to its predecessor, was a smooth conical tower, shaped 'so as to offer the least possible resistance to wind and wave'.
In 1715 Captain Lovett died and his lease was purchased by Robert Weston, Esq., in company with two others (one of whom was Rudyard).[17]
On the night of 2 December 1755, the top of the lantern caught fire, probably through a spark from one of the candles used to illuminate the light, or else through a fracture in the chimney which passed through the lantern from the stove in the kitchen below.
Smeaton's lighthouse
The third lighthouse to be built on the Eddystone marked a major step forward in the design of such structures.
Design and building
Following the destruction of Rudyard's tower, Robert Weston sought advice on rebuilding the lighthouse from the
Work began on the reef in August 1756, with the gradual cutting away of recesses in the rock which were designed to dovetail in due course with the foundations of the tower. During the winter, the workers stayed ashore and were employed in
Smeaton's lighthouse was 59 feet (18 m) high and had a diameter at the base of 26 feet (7.9 m) and at the top of 17 feet (5.2 m). It was lit by a chandelier of 24 large tallow candles.[23]
Later modifications
In 1807 the 100-year lease on the lighthouse expired, whereupon ownership and management devolved to
In 1841 major renovations were made,
From 1858 the tower's exterior was painted with broad red and white horizontal bands, so as to render it 'more distinctly visible during the day time'.[30] In 1872 a 5 cwt fog bell was provided for the lighthouse; it was sounded 'five times in quick succession every half minute' in foggy weather.[31] That same year an improved lamp was installed, which more than doubled the intensity of the light.[32]
In 1877 it was resolved to build a replacement lighthouse, following reports that erosion to the rocks under Smeaton's tower was causing it to shake from side to side whenever large waves hit.[33] During construction of the new lighthouse, the Town Council of Plymouth petitioned for Smeaton's tower to be dismantled and rebuilt on Plymouth Hoe, in lieu of a Trinity House daymark which stood there. Trinity House consented to the removal and delivery of the lantern and the upper four rooms of the tower, the cost of labour to be borne by Plymouth Council.[34] While the new tower was being built the old lighthouse remained operational, up until 3 February 1882 (after which a temporary fixed light was shown from the top of the new tower). When the latter was complete, Smeaton's lighthouse was decommissioned and the crane which had been used to build the new lighthouse was transferred to the task of dismantling the old. William Tregarthen Douglass supervised the operation.
Present day
The upper part of Smeaton's lighthouse was subsequently rebuilt, as planned, on top of a replica granite
The original frustum or base of the tower also survives, standing where it was built on the Eddystone rocks, 120 feet (37 m) from the current lighthouse. Having dismantled the upper part of the structure, Douglass infilled the old entrance way and stairwell within the frustum and fixed an iron mast to the top of the stub tower. He expressed the hope that 'the rock below will for ages endure to support this portion of Smeaton's lighthouse, which, in its thus diminished form, is still rendering important service to the mariner, in giving a distinctive character to the Eddystone by day'.[34]
Douglass's lighthouse
The current, fourth lighthouse was designed by James Douglass (using Robert Stevenson's developments of Smeaton's techniques).[citation needed] This lighthouse is still in use.
Design and building
By July 1878 the new site, on the South Rock was being prepared during the 3½ hours between
The lighthouse was topped by a larger than usual lantern storey, 16 ft 6 in (5.03 m) high and 14 ft (4.3 m) wide;
The light had a range of 17 nautical miles (31 km; 20 mi).
In addition to the main light a fixed white light was shone from a room on the eighth storey of the tower (using a pair of
Later modifications
In 1894 an explosive fog signal device was installed on the gallery of lighthouse; the fog bells were briefly retained as a standby provision, but then removed.
The lighthouse was automated in 1982, the first
Present day
The tower is 49 metres (161 ft) high, and its white light flashes twice every 10 seconds. The light is visible to 22 nautical miles (41 km), and is supplemented by a foghorn of 3 blasts every 62 seconds.[5] A subsidiary red sector light shines from a window in the tower to highlight the Hand Deeps hazard to the west-northwest. The lighthouse is now monitored and controlled from the Trinity House Operations Control Centre at Harwich in Essex.
References in media
This section needs additional citations for verification. (November 2015) |
- The lighthouse inspired a sea shanty, frequently recorded, that begins "My father was the keeper of the Eddystone light / He courted a mermaid one fine night / From this union there came three / A porpoise and a porgy and the other was me!".[52] There are several verses.
- The lighthouse has been used as a metaphor for stability.[53]
- In the Goon Show episode Ten Snowballs that shook the World (1958), Neddie Seagoon is sent to Eddystone Lighthouse to warn the inhabitants that Sterlinghas dropped from F-sharp to E-flat.
- The lighthouse is celebrated in the opening and closing movements of Ron Goodwin's Drake 400 Suite. The movement's main theme was directly inspired by the lighthouse's unique light characteristic.[54]
- A novel based on the building of Smeaton's lighthouse, containing many details of the construction, was published in 2005.[55]
- The lighthouse is referenced twice in Herman Melville's epic novel Moby-Dick; at the beginning of Chapter 14, "Nantucket": "How it stands there, away off shore, more lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse.", and in Chapter 133, "The Chase – First Day": "So, in a gale, the but half baffled Channel billows only recoil from the base of the Eddystone, triumphantly to overleap its summit with their scud."
- The lighthouse is referred to in "Daddy was a Ballplayer" by the Canadian band Stringband, and follows a similar line to the sea shanty.
- "The Most Famous of All Lighthouses," the third chapter of The Story of Lighthouses (Norton 1965) by Mary Ellen Chase, is devoted to the Eddystone Lighthouse.
- Eddystone Lighthouse was used for many of the exterior shots in The Phantom Light, a 1935 film directed by Michael Powell.[56]
- The English pop group Edison Lighthouse took its name from it. Later, 'Lighthouse' was discarded, and they renamed themselves 'Edison'.
- An 1850 replica of Smeaton's lighthouse, Sir John Barrow.
See also
- List of lighthouses in England
- Bluetooth Low Energy beacon
- Hook Lighthouse, second oldest lighthouse in the world and oldest in the British Isles
Notes
- ^ Later Colonel John Lovett (c. 1660–1710) of Liscombe Park Buckinghamshire and Corfe, (son and heir of former merchant in Turkey, Christopher Lovett, lord mayor of Dublin 1676–1677) and uncle of noted architect Edward Lovett Pearce 1699–1733.
- ^ There were in fact several optics with two or more tiers of first-order lenses already in use in lighthouses around the coast of Ireland (engineered by Douglass's great rival John Richardson Wigham), but these were lit by gas.
References
- ^ Rowlett, Russ. "Lighthouses of Southwest England (Devon and Cornwall)". The Lighthouse Directory. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
- ^ Eddystone Lighthouse Trinity House. Retrieved 30 April 2016
- ceremonial countyof Devon
- ^ "Get A Map". Ordnance Survey. Archived from the original on 9 June 2021. Retrieved 6 September 2006. View at 1:50000 scale
- ^ a b c d e f "Eddystone history". Trinity House. Archived from the original on 8 November 2014. Retrieved 27 November 2014.
- ^ a b "Lighthouse". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
- ^ Smiles, Samuel (1861). The Lives of the Engineers. Vol. 2. p. 16.
- ^ 01: Winstanley’s Light (painting 1699 – 1703)
- ^ a b c d Nancollas, Tom (2018). Seashaken Houses: A Lighthouse History from Eddystone to Fastnet. Particular Books. p. 108.
- ^ "Eddystone Lighthouse History". Eddystone Tatler Ltd. Archived from the original on 2 May 2006. Retrieved 7 September 2006.
- ^ "The Great Storm of 1703". BBC. Archived from the original on 30 August 2006. Retrieved 7 September 2006.
- ISBN 978-0-19-925023-3.
- ^ a b The Story of John Smeaton and the Eddystone Lighthouse. London: T. Nelson & Sons. 1876. p. 26.
- ^ Contemporary illustrations with description by Rudyerd.
- ^ Majdalany, Fred (1959). The Red Rocks of Eddystone. London: Longmans. p. 86.
- ^ Lens, Bernard; John Sturt (1708). "A Prospect and Section of the Light-House on the Eddystone Rock off of Plymouth. Rebuilt... The Lights put up therein ye 28th July 1708... Design'd and Built by Jon Rudyerd Gent (with key) [PAH9778]". Retrieved 13 September 2022 – via National Maritime Museum.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7277-5128-7. Retrieved 21 March 2021.
- S2CID 186209316.
- ISBN 0-9547062-0-X.
- ^ Lighthouse, Eddystone, second / sample / lead www.nms.ac.uk, accessed 12 December 2019
- ^ a b c Price Edwards, E. (1882). The Eddystone Lighthouses (new and Old). London: Simpkin, Marshall. pp. 13–28.
- ISBN 0-86114-806-1.
- ^ a b Brewster, David (1832). The Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, vol. XII. Philadelphia: Joseph and Edward Parker. pp. 54–57.
- ^ Woolmer's Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 15 May 1841
- ^ image
- ^ "Lighthouse management : the report of the Royal Commissioners on Lights, Buoys, and Beacons, 1861, examined and refuted Vol. 2". 1861. p. 88.
- ^ Elliot, George H. (1875). European Light-House Systems. London: Lockwood & co. p. 137. Archived from the original on 29 October 2020. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
- ^ Levitt, Theresa (2013). A Short Bright Flash: Augustin Fresnel and the Birth of the Modern Lighthouse. New York: W. W. Norton & co.
- ^ "Lighthouses and Lightvessels, 1848". Accounts and Papers of the House of Commons. 53 (636): 6. 30 July 1850.
- ^ London Gazette, Issue 22134, Page 2176, 4 May 1858.
- ^ London Gazette, Issue 23936, Page 79, 10 January 1873
- ^ a b Majdalany, Fred (1960). The Eddystone Light. Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin. pp. 198–199.
- ^ Douglass, James Nicholas (1878). "Note on the Eddystone Lighthouse". Minutes of proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Vol. 53, part 3. London: Institution of Civil Engineers. pp. 247–248.
- ^ a b c d e Douglass, William Tregarthen (27 November 1883). "The New Eddystone Lighthouse". Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers. LXXV (1960): 20–36.
- ^ a b c "Lighthouses". Encyclopaedia Britannica, 10th Edition. 30: 252. 1902. Retrieved 19 February 2020.
- ^ "Commencement and Progress of the Eddystone". The Cornishman. No. 40. 17 April 1879. p. 6.
- ^ "The New Eddystone Lighthouse". The Cornishman. No. 49. 19 June 1879. p. 3.
- ^ a b King, John W. (1886). The Channel Pilot (Part 1). London: The Hydrographic Office, Admiralty. p. 83.
- ^ a b c d Palmer, Mike (2005). Eddystone: The Finger of Light. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Seafarer Books. p. 123.
- ^ image
- ^ a b Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911 edition, vol. 16, p. 650.
- ^ Tag, Thomas. "Hyper-Radial Lenses". United States Lighthouse Society. Archived from the original on 29 October 2020. Retrieved 25 January 2020.
- ^ Chance, James Frederick (2018). A History of the Firm of Chance Brothers & Co. Sheffield, UK: Society of Glass Technology. p. 178.
- ^ image
- ^ Davenport Adams, W. H. (1891). The Story of our Lighthouses and Lightships: Descriptive and Historical (PDF). London, Edinburgh & New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons. pp. 111–116. Retrieved 27 February 2019.
- ^ image
- ^ a b Renton, Alan (2001). Lost Sounds: The Story of Coast Fog Signals. Caithness, Scotland: Whittles.
- ^ Photo of one half of the old optic.
- ^ "Eddystone Lighthouse". Trinity House. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
- ^ Auld, Jack (21 July 1983). "Automation relieves the Eddystone keeper". New Scientist. 99 (1367): 213.
- ^ Woodman, Richard; Wilson, Jane (2002). The Lighthouses of Trinity House. Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts.: Thomas Reed. p. 179.
- ^ "The Eddystone Light". Retrieved 11 April 2008.
- ^ Thomas D'Arcy McGee commented that Canada's foundations were as "strong as the foundations of Eddystone" in The Globe, 31 October 1864, 4.
- ^ CD insert, "British Light Music: Ron Goodwin. 633 Squadron, Drake 400 Suite, and others. New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Ron Goodwin, conductor." Marco Polo CD 8.223518
- ISBN 0-9542750-9-8.
- ^ "Beacons in the Dark: Lighthouse Iconography in Wartime British Cinema"
Further reading
- ISBN 0-7509-1835-7.
- John Smeaton (1793). A Narrative of the Building and Description of the Eddystone Lighthouse with Stone. London[ISBN missing]
- Palmer, Mike; Eddystone, The Finger of Light. Palmridge Publishing, 1998 – Revised edition, 2005 by Seafarer Books & Globe Pequot Press / Sheridan House ISBN 0-9547062-0-X
- Eddystone (2016). The Finger of Light, revised Kindle ebook edition[ISBN missing]