Ken’s Substack

The Last Light Keepers

Ken Trethewey — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 05:01:23 GMT

I am often asked if there are still lighthouse keepers. It’s surprising that many people don’t realise that, in the jurisdiction of Trinity House (England, Wales, the Channel Islands and Gibraltar) the last lighthouse keeper left his post in November 1998 - nearly thirty years ago. The British media covered the event modestly at the time, and in the southwest region there were several news reports. I recorded various items and the video I have included with this article is one of those.

This video is available on YouTube

It covers the automation of the famous Lizard lighthouse, a few months earlier in 1998 than the final automation of North Foreland that November. Principal Keeper Eddie Matthews had been in the service for forty years and was reported as being the longest-serving keeper at that time. Interviewed by James Old, Eddie gives a brief run-down of the main features of the Lizard light, as well as offering a rare televised description of fog signals. With the old fog horn still in working order, Eddie gives a few blasts on the horn and distinguishes between his old ‘Grunter’ and the new ‘Screamer’ installed to replace the obsolete horn.

Rear Admiral Patrick Rowe, then Deputy Master of Trinity House, makes a brief appearance to reassure viewers that there will be no reduction in safety due to the removal of lighthouse keepers. Finally, the short video is completed as BBC weatherman Craig Rich interviews keeper David Spurgeon about the lesser known role performed at lighthouses in capturing vital weather data.

So, for we Brits, that was pretty much the end of lighthouse-keeping as we knew it, the end of an era that had lasted for hundreds of years. The days of that afternoon-watch welcome by uniformed guardians, the amazing view of the optic turning at the push of a finger, lots of good tales related with a twinkle in the eye, and the upturned cap at the door as you left, were over. (My book, Medieval Lighthouses gives the definitive history of how and when it all began.)

It’s easy for us to say there are no keepers left serving our lighthouses in England, Wales, Scotland (all 1998), Ireland (1997), Germany (1998), Sweden (2003), Norway (2006) and the USA (2023), countries where identifiable roles of employment existed and are now terminated since the years given.

In the USA, the U.S. Lighthouse Service ceased employing lighthouse keepers when it was merged into the U.S. Coast Guard on 1 July 1939. Existing civilian keepers could remain in Coast Guard employment, while subsequent staffing increasingly consisted of uniformed Coast Guard personnel. Traditional lighthouse keeping therefore continued for several decades after 1939, but under the Coast Guard rather than the Lighthouse Service. Automation accelerated from the 1960s onwards. The U.S. Coast Guard ceased employing lighthouse keepers on 30 December 2023 when Sally Snowman, a civilian keeper of Boston Light, retired and the last official keeper’s position was discontinued. Traditional operational lightkeeping had effectively ended in 1998 when Boston Light was automated. Snowman’s later position combined custodial care, inspection, historical interpretation and public tours rather than the old necessity of manually operating the lamp throughout the night.

The USA has a deep affinity for personal involvement in light keeping and held a desire to retain a human presence for as long as possible and by whatever means. With its great amount of coastline, the USA has a large number of Lighthouse Preservation Groups, but there are no longer any formal keepers in the traditional sense. Americans have a way of making things happen.

Australia, New Zealand and Japan essentially followed the European model by eliminating the role of the lighthouse keeper at the end of the last century.

On the other hand, some countries do still employ personnel in roles that are recognisable as being light keepers. For example, Canada still has a substantial operational federal service. Canada is such a large, comparatively unpopulated land mass that it is important to maintain a human presence at extremely remote and inaccessible locations where some families actually enjoy the isolation whilst knowing that their work is of great value. As in the USA, the Coast Guard carries out the formal duties of watching the coastline, but the keepers that still remain are civilians.

This lighthouse at Pulteney Point is on the remote Malcolm Island near Port McNeill, British Columbia in Canada. It is still manned and has been designated as a heritage lighthouse. (Photo: Martin Smith, 2024)

Portugal too has retained its human presence at lighthouses, because the profession continues there. Cabo de São Vicente on the extreme southwest tip of Europe is one of the clearest surviving examples. Portugal automated its lights without abolishing the lighthouse-keeper service, a different model from Britain. Their role is no longer primarily to tend the lamp through the night. The modern duties include maintaining and monitoring the light and its large Fresnel optic, looking after other navigational equipment, maintaining the station, dealing with faults, and supporting public access. The lighthouse is automated, but it remains a staffed operational station, rather than merely a historic lighthouse with custodians or museum attendants. The Portuguese authority still explicitly describes lighthouse keeping as an active profession.

Lighthouse keepers are retained at the Cabo de São Vicente lighthouse in Portugal. (Photo: Graham Whitehead 2009)

In Spain and Italy there are still some employed personnel in a declining service where employees remain until they retire, whereupon they are not replaced. In Mediterranean countries generally, the culture of the Latin countries has mostly assigned lighthouses to military oversight and visitors are actively discouraged from coming near them.

The Castillo de San Sebastián in Cádiz is open to the public if you’re lucky. (It wasn’t for me.) Located inside an active military castle it does not allow visitors inside. (Photo: Mark Lewis, 2016)

Even the fabulous Lanterna in Genoa has only recently been opened to the public and then, only partly, its lantern remaining under lock and key. (See Medieval Lighthouses for a full description.) One of the finest in the world, this lighthouse is like a Russian doll, inside a military site itself inside a commercial docks. If you can find it, access is challenging.

Access to the Lanterna in Genoa, Italy is challenging. Even if you do get inside, access to the tower is not permitted.

Today, France is probably the most lighthouse-friendly country in the world with many wonderful sites to visit accompanied by gift shops stocked with excellent products that benefit from that imaginative French artistic flair. The French lighthouse network is almost entirely automated, but because of its extreme significance, Cordouan continues to be manned by a selected group of guardians who take care of all aspects of this both as a lighthouse and as a major visitor centre.

The task of maintaining Cordouan, the world’s premier lighthouse both as an important navigational mark and as a major tourist location falls on the shoulders of a substantial team of employees, some of whom actually live here as in earlier times.

But throughout France visitors can turn up at a lighthouse and stand a good chance of getting inside.

Then there are countries where people remain in lighthouse towers but are not really keepers. The Netherlands employs personel principally as vessel-traffic controllers and lookouts, while Denmark hires staff for heritage, museum, nature or property purposes, rather than as operational keepers. Norway retains some heritage personnel at the most historic sites such as Lindesnes.

The lighthouse at Texel in the Netherlands is open to the public even though it continues to be an active marine monitoring location. (Photo: Norman Wilson, 2017)

So how do we summarise the situation that now arises in lighthouses where automation has been available for over thirty years? The official viewpoint could be that these are important structures that must function continuously with no interference, in the same way as our telecommunication towers. Why should they be opened to visitors? Well, just like the many other national treasures we associate with our history, it has always been recognised that citizens should be able to appreciate these milestones in our cultural heritage. As a long-time visitor myself to the many lighthouse locations of the world, I have found that across the spectrum of first-world international nations, the balance between keeping lights functional for navigational purposes and opening them to visitors for heritage and historical objectives varies greatly.

For the many years since automation, the Trinity House Estate has been inconsistent in its approach to the heritage function. In recent years access of the British public to its lighthouses has, if anything declined such that today, only a handful of the great lighthouses of history can be appreciated and enjoyed by visitors. The wonderful Lizard lighthouse I showed at the start of this piece has been closed since 2020 and the only lighthouse museum once successfully open in Penzance has been closed for much longer. Once taken out of service, the buildings have become attractive propositions private holiday lets that promote privacy, or else for sale to potential owners of exotic houses.

As I have reported in France, on the other hand, many of the comparably magnificent structures are now open to visitors, where, for a few euros, it is possible to climb these very tall towers (a subject in an earlier SubStack article.) With formal lightkeepers now a career consigned to history, France is a leading nation in which the administration has accepted that employment at lighthouses now takes the form of staff who welcome welcome visitors and perform all the roles necessary to maintain a tourist attraction.

I found one example of an unwelcoming lighthouse at Portzic near Brest in France where, being within the naval territory of this port, the lighthouse had been made part of the military infrastructure and visitors were forbidden to take photographs! So this site was permanently manned, but not with lighthouse keepers. I think I was logged for taking this photo!

Across the rest of the world the story is quite variable, depending upon the cultural value placed upon lighthouses by the relevant authorities. South America is a vast, relatively underpopulated land mass that, though it certainly has networks of active lighthouses, their value as tourist destinations is tiny. The vast majority of lighthouses have been automated, so the traditional full-time resident lighthouse keeper has largely disappeared. However, there are still a few situations where personnel - usually belonging to the military - are stationed at or regularly assigned to lighthouse sites. The usual reasoning, as we observed in Canada, is that in parts of the world that have large areas of minimum habitation, or significant numbers of remote islands, the human presence remains highly desirable for reasons beside keeping lights.

Chile has a strong tradition of staffed lighthouses and the Chilean Navy maintains a number of remote lighthouses along Patagonia, the Strait of Magellan, and isolated Pacific islands. Some of these have naval personnel living on-site because they also perform weather observations, communications, search-and-rescue support, and maintenance.

Argentina also operates a handful of remote lighthouse stations, particularly in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, where naval personnel may be assigned for extended periods rather than civilian lighthouse keepers in the traditional sense.

Brazil, Uruguay, and Peru have largely automated their lighthouse networks. Maintenance crews visit periodically, but permanent keepers are generally no longer employed. In countries such as Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela, most navigational lights are likewise automated and maintained by the relevant maritime authorities.

As for Africa, South Africa has one of Africa’s largest lighthouse networks. Almost all lights are automated, but some major stations still have resident or on-site staff. Their duties include maintenance, visitor services (where the lighthouse is open to the public), weather observations, and operation of associated facilities. The traditional “keeper” role has evolved into that of a technician or station manager.

Overall, Africa still has a small number of people living or working at lighthouse stations, but, as in South America, they are rarely employed solely to "keep the light." Automation has reduced that traditional occupation to a handful of exceptional cases, usually at remote sites or heritage locations. Nevertheless, sophisticated automated networks are expensive and may be beyond the budgets of some countries.

A few factors make the Indian subcontinent somewhat different from Europe or North America. Many lighthouse stations are located on remote islands or sparsely populated coasts where regular maintenance visits are difficult. Cyclones, monsoons, salt corrosion, and unreliable local infrastructure mean that on-site staff can still be valuable. Several historic lighthouses are open to visitors, requiring personnel for tourism as well as technical operations.

So while the occupation of a civilian whose sole duty is tending a lighthouse has largely disappeared, India in particular probably still has more staffed lighthouse stations than many Western countries, simply because of the size of its coastline and the logistical challenges of maintaining remote aids to navigation. Those staff, however, are typically technicians, engineers, or government employees rather than traditional lighthouse keepers.

Overall, China is probably somewhere between Europe and countries with very remote coastlines such as Chile. It has far fewer traditional lighthouse keepers than in the past. It still has more staffed lighthouse stations than many Western nations because of its extensive coastline, numerous offshore islands, and the broader operational and strategic roles some stations fulfil.

One thing is consistent almost everywhere: the occupation of lighthouse keeper has changed more than it has disappeared. The lonely civilian keeper whose primary task was winding the clockwork, trimming the wick, and polishing the optic has certainly become a figure of history. Where people still live at lighthouse stations, they are almost always engineers, coast guard members, naval personnel, or maritime safety technicians with a much broader set of responsibilities than simply tending the light. Perhaps lighthouses will continue to play an important part in human activities for decades to come?

Of the media, and Arthur Lane, and Me

Ken Trethewey — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 05:00:44 GMT

To be a part of a radio or television broadcast is, these days, the highlight of most ordinary people’s humdrum lives. From my own experience, however, it leaves a lot to be desired and I usually try to avoid it. My reputation in the world of lighthouses has meant that, from time to time, I get asked to participate in what at first seem like good opportunities to make educational broadcasts, but which always seem to degenerate into senselessness of some kind. I shall have much more to say about this in the future.

My first brush with the media was in 1978 when I was asked for an interview with the well-known BBC local radio presenter, Steve Annet. It was the centenary of the Douglass Eddystone tower being started and there was to be a programme about it. My name had come up after I had given a lecture about the Eddystone lighthouse in the Plymouth City Library for that very reason. Steve actually came to my house in Torpoint one afternoon, and we spent a delightful hour talking about my lighthouse connections and what I had been up to. But as soon as he took the microphone out of the case and switched it on, it was as if I had been the target of a magic spell that meant my mouth wouldn’t work properly. I’m sure Steve must have been mystified by the difference in my split persona, the first ‘me’ being lucid and interesting, the second ‘me’ being little more than a gibbering idiot. Perhaps it is a good thing that I really can’t remember what the programme sounded like. It was the first time I really understood what it is like when people are nervous during interviews.

To this day, I always listen carefully to the person speaking in an interview so as to rate them on the Trethewey scale of nervousness. If there is any sign of broken sentences or tightness of breath, I usually feel sympathy through my personal experience all those years ago. Like everything, practice helps a lot, and I have done many interviews since that have gone a lot better.

By 1996, the Lighthouse Society of Great Britain web site was beginning to have an impact and contacts began on a regular basis with members of the media about all kinds of subjects ranging from simple questions like, “I want to interview a lighthouse keeper. Can you give me any names and phone numbers?” to “The Government has announced a grant for the restoration of Smeaton’s Tower. Can we have a comment please?” Indeed, during the run-up to the removal of all lighthouse keepers from the last fully manned stations in 1998, there was a lot of media interest as each station was progressively automated. I shall have more to say about this in future articles here.

Now we all know how ‘instant’ things must be with the media, so I tried never to get excited about their projects, most of which simply fizzled out completely. Then, one day in the spring of 1998, a caller said, “We are going to make a TV programme about the Eddystone and we need some technical assistance...” The programme was to be called Cadles’s Quest (watch it here) and its presenter, Jeremy Cadle, was to spend 20 minutes of airtime investigating the history of the building of the Eddystone lighthouses and I was to be one of his assistants. This ‘star’ was a person that I had never heard of before the event, and I have never heard of since. Nevertheless, I found him to be a genuinely charismatic and personable young man and I could understand why he had been hired.

The author with ex-keeper Arthur Lane (right) in 2003

The programme that resulted, however, is one that I am not at all proud of, not because of anything I did or didn’t do, but simply because it was too superficial. The producer openly admitted that his target audience were young males aged 18 to 30, who might be sat in front of the TV with cans of lager in their hands prior to “going out clubbing”, an act that, as far as I was concerned, might have resulted in them returning with wild animal carcasses.

Anyway, there were several things about it that are worth reporting. The first was that the producer had enlisted the aid of a retired Eddystone lighthouse keeper, Arthur Lane, with whom I became good friends. The producer wanted to interview Arthur on screen and later to fly him out to the Eddystone on a chartered helicopter where he would give his views to camera on the changes that were occurring as a result of automation. Two things got in the way of this plan, however, for Arthur was a somewhat reluctant participant and had no interest in becoming a television celebrity. In the end, he did not appear in the programme, but I had made a new friend.

The second problem was that Trinity House were imposing conditions on the flight that amounted to refusal of permission for Arthur to return to the lighthouse. Exactly why they might have done this was anybody’s guess. After some discussions, the producer suggested that it was possible they might ask me to make the trip so that I could provide ‘expert’ opinion to camera. I tried to disguise my excitement at the prospect – I would have done ANYTHING, gymnastic convolutions or song and dance routines included, to get on that flight. But the producer was very unsure about the way ahead on this part of the programme and all the while, the thought that it would cost him £1,000 per hour for the helicopter kept him seriously focussed.

It is a common misconception that media representatives have huge budgets. They don’t. They paid me nothing that day and did not even add my name to the list of credits. I did, however, get a free fish-and-chip supper.

Ken with Jeremy Cadle and Arthur Lane’s Eddystone model at Marazion in 1998

I spent a most interesting and amusing day with the film crew. First, we did some very silly things on the beach at Marazion. We had a beautiful 1.5-metre tall model of the Douglass lighthouse that had been brought along by Arthur, and that had been made by Arthur’s son. It seemed that the TV producer had already decided that the flight to the Eddystone stood little chance of happening, and that the inclusion of Arthur’s model was the back-up plan. We placed it on a small rock that was being engulfed by the incoming tide, and then acted out a small unscripted play that described the issues surrounding the building of such structures. Then we moved onto a larger rock that was the point of departure, at high tide, for tourists going to the island of St Michael’s Mount. The path was narrow and people were constantly trying to get past the film crew with all its associated gear, and in the glare of bright lights. Amidst all this coming and going, and quizzical looks, Jeremy and I messed about with concrete blocks and real cement. I was asked to hold concrete blocks in my arms, whilst he added mortar and tried to represent the building of a lighthouse on a rock. The task was quite ridiculous because I just could not hold more than two blocks. The whole thing was becoming more and more farcical.

Building a ‘lighthouse!’

The most ridiculous thing occurred when we had finished filming and were all standing in the car park preparing to move off. A school trip of about forty French schoolchildren were returning from the beach to their transport and, I suppose, attracted by the sight of the film crew, they headed in our direction. But they didn’t stop, or linger around the equipment, seek autographs or, indeed, show any interest at all in what we were doing. They showed not the slightest interest or respect for a group of people in a meeting, or for the thousands of pounds worth of equipment lying around. Instead of taking a path around us, they simply washed completely over us like a tidal wave would engulf a rowing boat or a herd of stampeding cattle would trample on a stranded cowboy. Fortunately no damage was done, but it was a bizarre event!

Inside the lantern at the Lizard lighthouse in 1998 with keeper Eddie Matthews and Jeremy Cadle.

From Penzance we moved on to the Lizard lighthouse where automation was due to occur within a few months. There we met the principal keeper, Eddie Matthews, who was certainly no shrinking violet. The exact opposite of Arthur, Eddie was thrilled to enjoy his Warholian five minutes of fame and he provided the crew with all the footage they needed, as well as plenty of anecdotes and historical background. Eddie will appear again in some of my other videos.

I was certainly quite redundant at this point, though I should say that I was never made to feel so. I was simply able to watch the proceedings with interest and some amusement, enjoying a return visit to another of the lighthouses I love most, and where I made my very first lighthouse visit as a kid.

The final outcome to the producer’s dilemma about the flight to the Eddystone became apparent months later when transmission of the programme showed that they had actually taken another keeper, Bill Arnold, and not Arthur (or me!) back to the Eddystone. Another opportunity lost! (I now confess that I was finally allowed to take the Trinity House helicopter to the Eddystone in 2000. The outcome, along with every detail of all of the southwest’s lighthouses, is recorded in detail in my 2020 book, The Lighthouses of Cornwall and Devon.)

Bill’s contribution to the programme had little to do with the vital duties he carried out, but instead answered that age-old question of how light keepers went to the toilet! Hmmm!

I learned in May 2014, that my old friend, Arthur Lane, had died. Having left the lighthouse service, Arthur had become a teacher of English, a wonderfully appropriate career for him to entrance young people with his brilliant sense of humour. One of his claims to fame was his authorship of the wonderful book of his memoirs of service at the Eddystone, It Was Fun While It Lasted - something he always referred to as “IWFWIL”. I shall never forget the opening pages as being some of the funniest I have read.

After the ridiculous farce of our day at Marazion, I maintained only a slight relationship with Arthur Lane brought about because of the large geographical distance between us. He was always active in lighthouse circles, but on his own terms. I received occasional letters, one of which I shall never forget, for it contained details of the magnificent large model of the Eddystone that had by then been erected in his back garden, complete with working lantern.

Ken and Arthur raise a glass to Henry Winstanley at midnight on the 300th anniversary of his death in the “greatest storm there ever was.” The Eddystone light was flashing away in the background as we did so from this, the nearest point of land.

In November 2003, Arthur contacted me and said that he wanted to honour Henry Winstanley, the unfortunate builder of the first Eddystone lighthouse, who was killed when his lighthouse was washed away after it had stood resolutely for five years. 27 November 2003 was the 300th anniversary of this event, and Arthur wanted to stand on the nearest point of land at midnight and raise a glass to his hero. He came to see me, travelling a long way from his home near Birmingham. He refused to stay in my house and chose a local B&B because, he said, he did not want to put Chris and I to any trouble. We both stood on the cliffs at Rame Head and drank a toast to Henry Winstanley at precisely midnight.

Naturally, we needed a photograph to mark the occasion. There were just the two of us, and we were in total darkness, of course. I had brought my camera with me, and it had a flash, a self-timer function that was very useful, but no tripod. Fortunately, there was a wooden fence close by, so I was able to rest the camera on the top rail, pointed towards the Eddystone that lurked somewhere in the darkness ten miles out to sea behind us. Arthur and I arranged ourselves in front of the camera, with the Douglass tower situated between us. Trouble was, the height of the rail was a little low, and our heads would have disappeared out of the top of the photograph. So we had to bend our knees and synchronise our poses in front of the camera that whirred away in total darkness until, after ten seconds, there was a blinding flash and the event was captured. The photograph came out well. Arthur loved it, for there, perfectly captured for posterity, were two bandy old men getting drunk on a Cornish cliff top miles from anywhere. It was an illustrated story that could have been found, written by Arthur himself for IWFWIL.

I always wanted to get closer to Arthur, but he refused point blank, telling me in his own blunt, dark humour that there was no point for he would be dead soon. Fortunately, he proved me wrong by eleven years, but I never saw him again. So I raise my glass to you once more, Arthur. You were a lovely, intelligent, sharp-witted man who enriched life on this planet. You are much missed.

A Lighthouse Brief

Ken Trethewey — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 05:00:34 GMT

[Extract from The Lighthouses of Cornwall and Devon, 2020.]

The Chapel of St. Nicholas at Ilfracombe, from where a light has been shown since at least 1522 - making it one of the oldest active lighthouse sites in the country.

Cornwall and Devon have a rich seafaring legacy, and the part played by lighthouses is world-class. The conflicting interests of wreckers and lifesavers have received much attention from those who promote our history, and some are presented in this book.

It is understandable that so much of our lighthouse legacy derives from the last 300 years or so, for this is the period in which the greatest number of historical records can be found. However, it is clear that there remains a great deal of less well-known maritime history. In my other works on pharology, I have discussed the presence of the Phoenicians, Romans, Celts and others around our counties’ shores and the ways in which they undoubtedly used aids to navigation, whether lit or unlit. It is both the geographical location and the geological structure of Cornwall and Devon at the extremity of northwest Europe that made the counties important in ancient times. The earliest inhabitants were probably associated with the extraction and trading of mineral resources, of which tin, copper and their alloy, bronze, are the most significant. Visitors from overseas to a relatively uninhabited corner of Europe, needed to navigate here successfully, and the historical context suggests a far greater use of navigational aids than has so far been accepted. Hard evidence is difficult to find, and the detailed story remains indistinct.

Chapel Carn Brae is the site of an ancient beacon on a high point of the extreme west of the Cornish peninsula from where fires were lit to guide mariners. The summit at 200 m (657 ft) is marked by the remains of a medieval chapel of St. Michael, but the site was almost certainly used by Bronze Age people, possibly advertising to Romans and Phoenicians the location of a trading point for tin and copper. It looks down upon the modern Longships lighthouse, visible in the right of the photograph, and on festive occasions a beacon is still lit in the brazier on the left.

There are many possible early sites where lights - whether regular or intermittent - were shown for navigators. The Isles of Scilly were of much greater significance in the distant past, when sea levels were lower and their land mass was more extensive than today. The knowledge that there were scarce and important minerals to be found in Cornwall and Devon made ‘The Tin Isles’ famous amongst those who needed them for better weapons. It also made them of great value to the traders who built businesses from trading them.

Later, as Christianity became more widespread throughout Europe, we find many instances whereby hermits or groups of monks, friars or nuns dedicated their sites of worship to certain Saints. As a sign of their faith it was common practice to exhibit lights at night for the benefit of mariners. These beacons are described under the general title of Ecclesiastical Lights, although there is a far deeper history too.

St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall.

St. Michael is a saint frequently associated with sites of assistance to mariners and we at once think of St. Michael’s Mount at Marazion (above) - and its equivalent, Mont Saint Michel in Normandy - as famous landmarks with associations to the safety of seamen; both are surmounted by places of worship. The Cornish island has been suggested as the ancient island of Ictis, a well-known tin trading centre in the Bronze Age. As the chief opponent of Satan, St. Michael was called upon to assist persons who were close to death, hence we have an important clue that suggests sites close to the sea bearing his name were at some time in the past showing lights for seamen in distress. Another example is Looe Island, dedicated to the same saint, and he was also linked to the chapel on Rame Head where a light was kept for some time.

Chapel Carn Brae in St. Just, one of the high points of west Cornwall and a prominent landmark from the sea, was definitely used as a beacon because records from the 14th century are held in Cornwall County Record Office of payments made by “...fishermen of Cape Cornwall to Richard the Hermit of the chapel of St. Michael of Brea for the showing of a light.”

St. Nicholas is another saint strongly associated with mariners and it was to him that the old chapel at Ilfracombe was dedicated. Definite records of a light there go back to at least 1522. Remarkably, this remains a fully active navigational aid and on that basis is one of the oldest working lighthouses in the country, even if it does not quite conform to most ideas of what a lighthouse should look like. Another location that was probably the site of an ecclesiastical light is at St. Nicholas Chapel on the ‘island’ at St. Ives.

The chapel of St. Nicholas on a high point of the ‘Island’ at St. Ives where lights were almost certainly shown to assist sailors back to their home port.

A number of instances of women called St. Catherine or Katherine are known and many of these were dedicated to marine safety. St. Catherine’s Point on the Isle of Wight is an obvious example, being a fine lighthouse site, but we also find lights associated with the castle at St. Catherine’s Point in Fowey.

There is no doubt of the ancient tradition of showing lights to seafarers, but at some point there occurred a formalization of this act of humanity, and it came from the realization that there was money to be made. I shall relate the story in full in another book. Suffice to say that once it became possible, with Royal authority, to charge owners whose ships passed a light, the door was open for the building of dedicated structures with reliable showing of lights. From the 16th century, there is a gradual increase in the establishment of permanent lights in ‘light-houses’ as they were called. By charging a tax on passing ships, it was possible to offset the cost of the building plus the cost of running and maintenance, not least of which was the employment of keepers to ensure the light was shown reliably every night.

In this book you will find a reasonably complete record of ‘modern’ lighthouses in our two counties and you will note the great age of some of the sites, each of which has its own claim to significance. However, the premier lighthouse site in the region is where Smeaton’s Eddystone tower stands on Plymouth Hoe. Scottish people love to promote their own historic tower on the Bell Rock and the legacy of the Stevenson family, but there can be no question that it was on the Eddystone rocks that the history of the lighthouse in its present form commenced - one that I am pleased to present in detail here. Other wonderful rock lighthouses followed the lead from Winstanley, Rudyerd and Smeaton, and thanks to the Douglass family of engineers Cornwall and Devon have the finest collection of wave-swept towers in England and Wales.

On land, there are a number of sites of special significance amongst what is already a magnificent collection. The old Scilly lighthouse is one of the finest and earliest of its kind in the world, built in 1680. In a sense, it was one of the very first lighthouses of the Industrial Age. It was also the first to be given a revolving apparatus that made its light flash instead of simply being constant - a trivial development perhaps, but one of immense significance.

At the Lizard, a site of crucial importance to mariners arriving from afar, the twin lighthouse towers that replaced the old beacon fires in 1752 would have been unique but for another pair erected at Nash Point in South Wales some 80 years later. Today, the Lizard lighthouse towers remain mostly unchanged and one of the finest sites in the country for visitors to see at first hand how lighthouses have changed in the past 300 years.

Something that is often not fully appreciated is the role that lighthouses have played in the advancement of science and engineering. As new science was converted into real-world applications, it was often in lighthouses that the experiments were carried out. The development of electric power was initially carried out in lighthouses and the Lizard played a big part in that. Trevose Head was the site of some remarkable experiments in acoustics technology by the great scientist and Nobel Laureate, Lord Rayleigh (1842-1919) who devoted much effort towards improvements to fog signals.

At the time of its completion in 1820, Lundy Island lighthouse at 165 m above sea level was by far the highest light around our coastline, so high that it was often rendered useless in fog. Indeed, fog was such a problem that professional gunners were employed to live on the island with their families and to operate a gun battery whenever visibility to shipping was obstructed. Although lighting technology was advancing quickly, fog signals remained primitive and ineffective until the 1870s or thereabouts. The old lighthouse is a preserved heritage site today and its beautiful architecture is a joy to behold. When it was taken out of service and two new lighthouses were built at both ends of the island in 1898, they were promoted as the finest examples of modern engineering in the world.

The great Scottish engineer, Sir John Rennie (1761-1821), was responsible for the design of the massive 1.5 km-long Plymouth breakwater and its lighthouse of 1844.

Great Britain and France became the world leaders in modern lighthouse technology, exported around the globe through their imperial networks, and because of the particularly difficult conditions of the southwest counties - especially Cornwall, many of the best examples are to be found here. The world’s first ‘rooftop’ helicopter landing pad was installed on the Wolf Rock lighthouse in 1972, followed by others at Bishop Rock (1976) and Eddystone (1980).

Of course, technological advances meant that lighthouse keepers became increasingly redundant, a sad but inevitable result of engineering developments. Where, at first, humans had been a necessary element for all aspects of lighthouses, partial automation (in the sense that a lighthouse could operate unattended) was made possible in the early 1900s by a Swedish engineer, Gustav Dalen. He was director of a company that specialized in the production and storage of acetylene gas, a fuel that was especially suitable for powering and automating lighthouses. Dalen invented a
device called the sun valve which automatically shut off the flow of gas to a burning lamp during the hours of daylight. This remarkable invention earned him the 1912 Nobel Prize for physics and its application to lighthouse technology. This use of acetylene was applied to several harbour lighthouses in Cornwall and Devon.

Full automation and remote monitoring was not possible until the late 20th century and was first completed at Eddystone (1982), Wolf Rock (1988) and Bishop Rock (1992)

The Wolf Rock lighthouse with its helipad and solar array.

The two most recent advances have been in the use of solar power and LED technology. Trinity House was one of the first to employ solar energy in an industrial application, a project of the 1990s that installed early systems on buoys and then in light-vessels. The first fully automatic solar-powered system in a lighthouse was installed on the Eddystone - ‘solarized’ in 1999. Because solar power in these applications could not fully compete with electricity generation from on-board diesel engines and the usual 240/440 V supplies from ‘mains’ sources it was necessary to introduce new designs that used much less power for light and rotation of the optic. Whilst traditional tungsten filament light bulbs were being phased out, replaced by more efficient metal halide lamps, these in turn were soon to be replaced by arrays of small LED lights that could create high light intensities with far less consumption of electrical power. This was a great step forward for it allowed the design of much better systems working off fewer solar energy panels.

In the 21st century, lighted navigational aids fall into two main categories. The first might be thought of as a group of ‘major’ lights considered to be of greater importance across larger distances for sea-going (rather than merely coastal) navigation. These are managed directly by the Trinity House Lighthouse Service. All are monitored remotely from the Operations Control Centre at Harwich from where any fault can be observed at once and action taken to apply maintenance. Longer term planning for the development of the service is also carried out here, often in consultation with the International Association of Lighthouse Authorities (IALA) which oversees the effectiveness of the world-wide network by providing the forum through which international agencies can work together.

Above: The Trinity House Lighthouse Service Operations Control Centre at Harwich, Essex. Below: The displays used for remote monitoring of the lighthouses around the nation’s coastline.

The second category of ‘minor’ lights consists of systems having limited range for use in the vicinity of ports, harbours and inland waterways. These are managed locally by harbour authorities legally obliged to ensure that the lights under their control are maintained to a high standard. Day-to-day checks are made by harbour masters and other audits performed regularly by inspectors employed by Trinity House.

The system of ‘Lighted Aids to Navigation’ that we find around our shores today is one of the best in the world thanks to our continued emphasis on safety-at-sea and our place at the forefront of technology. All of this runs in parallel with a magnificent collection of lighthouses and their priceless contribution to our culture and heritage.

To The Top Of A Lighthouse

Ken Trethewey — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 05:01:58 GMT

The world’s tallest (conventional) lighthouse at Ile Vierge is a staggering 82.5 m tall.

Having just returned from enjoying the breathtaking views by climbing nine breathdraining lighthouses in France, my mind was wondering why the French lighthouse builders decided to construct so many of the tallest lighthouses. Readers who like data can see my list at the end, but suffice to say that, of the top twenty tallest lighthouses in France and Britain, the first seventeen are French and the final three are British. Hmm.

I am, of course, only considering those ‘traditional’ lighthouses built at sea level, but the numbers are stunning. We Brits who think we were world leaders in lighthouse building fall back on Bishop Rock and Eddystone as our torch bearers, each at 49 metres tall, with the Scottish Skerryvore close behind at 48 metres. But their statistics are belittled by no less than seventeen lighthouses in France, topped by the world’s tallest conventional lighthouse at Ile Vierge, a staggering 82.5 metres tall. The second tallest is at Gatteville (Barfleur) in Normandy at a wind-blown 75 m in height, whilst the world’s finest lighthouse at Cordouan is 68 m tall. And all three can be climbed by you.

At Gatteville in Normandy, the lighthouse known as Barfleur is 75 m tall.

The world’s finest lighthouse is at Cordouan in the estuary of the Gironde and is 68 m tall.

Eddystone, England’s torch-bearer, is a modest 49 metres tall. Don’t even think about asking to climb it.

So, yes, with lighthouses planted more firmly in French culture than in British, it turns out that a good number of these wonderful monuments can be visited and climbed for 4 or 5 Euros. If there is a disappointment it is that after you have demanded everything your lungs have to offer, the doors to the lantern are locked and you have to risk breaking a vertebrae from the gallery as you look up through the glass to the gorgeous optics that the French invented. Hmm.

They say that it is too dangerous to let people into an atmosphere where there is still mercury. With the balcony door wide open and the door to the lantern likewise ajar, all air in the lantern - mercury vapour-laden or not - would be constantly refreshed with clean air from outside. And for five minutes of exposure? Really? Where is the common sense here? I have spent many years working in labs where there was mercury and I think I’m still sane. (Some may disagree!)

The magnificent optic at Cordouan can only be seen from outside.

I still have not answered my question, of course. Why are French lighthouses so tall? Well, there is no good engineering answer. It is obvious that taller lighthouses can transmit their light to a more distant horizon, but surely a very bright light visible for thirty kilometres or so is good enough, as the equivalent of seven million candles at the Cornish Lizard lighthouse could show in the mid-20th century. And no British lighthouse has ever been deficient in modern times. So that is not a reason.

It is also possible for a lighthouse to be too high! The magnificent structure we now call Lundy Old Light was on the highest point of Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel. Its light was so high above the sea that it was frequently obscured in fog and rendered useless. Two new lighthouses were then built at lower elevation on the north and south ends of the island.

No, the most likely reason comes from the competition between French engineers to outperform their rivals. In Britain, there was only ever one engineer in charge building lighthouses for Trinity House and it seems he did not need to compete with himself!

The tallest twenty lighthouses in Britain and France (heights in metres)

Ile Vierge (82.5), Barfleur (75), Cordouan (68), Ilot de Planier (66), Roches Douvres (65), La Coubre (65), Eckmuhl (65), Les Baleines (57), Heaux de Brehat (57), Dunkerque (56), Le Touquet (56), Le Creac’h (55), Goulphar (52), Cap Ferret (52), Ile de Sein (51), Goury (51), Calais (51), Eddystone (49), Bishop Rock (49), Skerryvore (48)

Some Other Tallest Lighthouses

At the Cap de la Hague in Normandy, the Goury lighthouse is just offshore.

Le Creac’h is in Ouessant, known to Brits as Ushant.

The lighthouse on the Ile de Sein is fully open to the public and the island is accessible from Audierne.

The lighthouse known as Eckmuhl is located at the Pointe de Penmarc’h

The lighthouse at Chassiron is on the Ile d’Oleron

The lighthouse at Les Baleines is on the tip of the Ile de Re

La Coubre lighthouse is being attacked by a large sand dune just north of the Gironde.

The King of Lighthouses

Ken Trethewey — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 05:14:04 GMT

The Cordouan Lighthouse in the mouth of the Gironde

Most lighthouse lovers have heard of Cordouan. It is, without doubt, the world’s finest lighthouse, located in the centre of the great estuary of the Gironde River that leads to Bordeaux. Light from a structure built on the rocks here has assisted navigators since early medieval times (880), and although the rocks have presented a real and present danger to shipping, there are also extensive sandbanks that stretch for several kilometres around in a manner that makes the area very much like the Goodwin Sands off England’s east Kent that became known - for obvious reasons - as the ‘Ship Swallower’. In 2022 we tried to land on the Goodwin Sands thinking that it would be straightforward. It was not. And no lighthouse was ever built there. But at Cordouan the rocks at least offer the solidity needed for a proper foundation and therefore allowed Louis de Foix to commence building his masterpiece in 1584.

Even so, access for visitors to enjoy the Cordouan lighthouse is still complicated, for the sizeable craft needed to carry eager pharophiles to their destination cannot approach closer than 300-500 metres away from the end of a dedicated stone landing that runs for a further 240 metres to the north east of the lighthouse. From the closest approach point that clearly varies according to tide, twenty years ago, it was necessary to decant visitors into a small outboard-driven Gemini craft to access the sandbank and thence to get wet feet paddling to the nearest dry spot. Today, a remarkable amphibious craft is used that can speed gently through the deeper waters and then lollop onto the heavily pitted sandbanks where the visitors get a bonus shaking as the unique vehicle makes its three-wheeled way to the landing point. It’s a trip never-to-be-forgotten. Yet it is quickly forgotten once the visitor reaches solid ground and sets eyes on the 67.5 m tall Pharos, its joyfully crisp stone features setting the gaze ablaze in a summer’s day. Now that is a sight to behold!

And inside, the ring of associated buildings, the problem arises - what to do next? With so many unique features to explore, the Cordouan experience gets better and better. The magnificent lower spaces are not just vacuous rooms to assist the dedicated keepers of the light, but glorious chambers filled with sculpted features that amaze and entrance.

Just one of numerous spaces to be admired inside this magnificent lighthouse

And as you ascend the three hundred carefully crafted sandstone steps you encounter the continually unexpected, not least of which is a chapel with stained glass windows and a breathtaking domed ceiling. From there on up the breathdraining climb to the top there are plenty of other wondrous features until you finally reach the gallery and are able to enjoy the fabulous aerial panorama.

Even now, the joy continues, for by turning your back to the view you can see the stunning apparatus installed in the lantern, its red and green filters firmly fixed to provide the formal features of the light beams that emanate from the combination of lenses and prism that is now referred to as the Fresnel lens. (Please don’t pronounce the ‘s’!)

The optical apparatus is both an artistic and an engineering marvel.

The cliche phrase, ‘The Trip of a Lifetime,’ truly applies here, for there is no equivalent. Yes, you visit and climb a lighthouse, and yes, in France, you will be locked out of getting up close and personal with the glory of a French invention, but here at Cordouan you will find a lighthouse unsurpassed in artistic beauty and engineering prowess since the Great Alexandria Pharos was lost to humankind.

The Grave Situation

For those who take the trouble to visit this fabulous place, it is important to realise that there is a car ferry between Royan and Verdon-sur-Mer where these is another seemingly less significant lighthouse at the Pointe de Grave. Here you can repeat the experience of climbing the lighthouse and likewise be locked away from the optical apparatus. However, what makes this visit so important is the beautiful museum at its base that will offer a wonderful experience for those of us who find climbing these very tall French lighthouses so breathdraining. It is impossible not to conclude that Trinity House could learn a thing or two in France.

The lighthouse at the Pointe de Grave has a wonderful museum.

Lighthouse Visits in France

Ken Trethewey — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 04:15:31 GMT

The world’s tallest conventional lighthouse is to be found in Britanny at Ile Vierge

It’s possible that many readers will have little idea about French lighthouses. After all, were not the British world-leading lighthouse builders? Well, in many ways the answer is ‘yes’, but we Brits should understand that the French have made extraordinary contributions too and frequently offer a better visitor experience than we can find in our home countries. So, anyone who loves lighthouses (the French word for lighthouse is phare, derived from the name of the Pharos at Alexandria) should be made aware that there is a new world of wonder to be found for British visitors to the lighthouses of France.

At Gatteville in Normandy, another of the world’s tallest lighthouses allows you see the beautiful optic from outside the lantern.

The well-known French trait of ‘vive la difference’ is to be found in their execution of lighthouse building, whether in terms of structural design, of internal mechanisms, or of the artistic fixtures and fittings that were used to enhance the whitewashed walls of the British fraternity. In the Trinity House holdings, the mark of the lighthouse builder can indeed be found in its design, with minor differences of Walker and Douglass towers that are more subtle than the obvious family pattern employed by the Stevensons in Scotland.

In France, there are many structures that conform to the usual geometrical pattern, although there are many that are strikingly different. Some have twin-tiered galleries that, if you are allowed outside, may or may not offer a close-up view of the optical apparatus - for you will probably not be allowed up close to the optics in France. Unfortunately, inside at the lower of the two levels, there is often a nicely wood-panelled room with a locked door where we would normally ascend to view the lantern. It would seem that, despite the master engineer/scientist Augustin Fresnel (pronounced fre-nell: please don’t say the ‘s’) having designed the magnificent magnifier that combines lenses and prisms to reflect and refract light into those beams that are cast out into the void, the current French authorities do not wish us to see them. Indeed, during our 2026 summer visit we have been excluded from the sites themselves because of a comprehensive programme of renovations.

The French have also typically employed great height to promote the reach of the light, with many structures well in excess of their British counterparts. Thus the magnificent Ile Vierge lighthouse is 82.5 m high, far higher than the English Bishop Rock (49 m) or the Scottish Skerryvore (48 m). Ile Vierge is the tallest (conventional) stone lighthouse in the world and the structure at Gatteville is a strong competitor at 75 m high with Eckmuhl lighthouse (aka the Phare de Penmarc’h) is ten metres shorter. And on the inside we find that beautiful ceramic tiles line the walls for the entire great height up to the ‘service room’ level where there is luscious wood panelling and a beautiful sculpture dedicated to the Duke Louis Davout, its 19th century benefactor.

The lighthouse called Eckmuhl is at the Pointe du Penmarc’h.

It is arguable whether French lighthouses are more integrated into French culture than in Britain, but the evidence in favour is to be found in the bookshops and trinket markets where the amount of produce bearing a lighthouse greatly exceeds what might be found in the UK. This popularity may possibly have been promoted by the likes of two great photographers, Jean Guichard and Philippe Plisson who since the 1980s have generated the finest portfolio of lighthouse photographs ever seen through their trailblazing use of helicopters to access angles never available before. (See my earlier piece on the world’s most famous lighthouse photograph.) It remains to be seen how much the use of drones will change things.

So, whether you choose the French side of the English Channel with the lovely visitable lighthouse in Calais and the glorious Gatteville in Normandy, or the incomparable collection of sentinels in Britanny from the world’s tallest at Ile Vierge to the world’s wettest at Le Four, the world’s finest at Cordouan on the Atlantic coast, or the intriguing and less well-known lights of the Mediterranean coast, there is an enormous amount of pleasure to be found in France for those of us with a penchant for les phares.

The use of ceramic wall tiles for the interior is a fine addition not found in British lighthouses.

At the level that we call the ‘service room’ in Britain, we find a wood-panelled room with a work of art - something that is not to be found anywhere in the UK. Access to the lantern is behind the locked door on the right.

A Race at the Race

Ken Trethewey — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 05:02:04 GMT

The lighthouse on the Race Rocks was the second light to be completed on the Canadian west coast in 1860, just beaten in a race to the finish by the builders of the Fisgard lighthouse. This was the best shot I could get from the land.

I have been lucky enough to spend some time on Vancouver Island in Canada. It is a most wonderful place for many reasons that I can’t begin to describe here, but the lighthouses are just one of those reasons to visit the island. Over the course of several visits I have now been fortunate enough to see quite a number of them.

The capital of Vancouver Island is Victoria on the southern tip and in the mid-19th century the port had become both a significant naval base for the British, as well as a location for participants in one of the gold rush events of those times. There were no lighthouses to assist the shipping and the authorities ordered the building of two lighthouses, one to guard against wrecks on a notorious reef called Race Rocks and another for the port itself at a place now called Fisgard. The construction of the two buildings pretty much in parallel led to a race to the finish - a race won by the team of men at Fisgard in 1860 only one month before the workers on the Race Rocks. At last, Royal Navy ships entering Victoria harbour could follow a straight bearing between the two positions and thence reach their port in Esquimault.

The Fisgard lighthouse was completed barely one month before its sister light on the Race Rocks. Both lighthouses were considered essential navigational aids into Victoria, the capital of Vancouver Island.

I had heard of the Race Rocks many years ago and could only imagine what it must be like - comparable with our Eddystone lighthouse perhaps? Well, just as the Eddystone is close to where I live in England, so the Race Rocks was close to where I was staying in Victoria. But could I get to see it? I knew it was not too far offshore, so surely there would be a place on the edge of the island from where I might get a telephoto shot? It turned out to be not as easy as I thought.

My hosts were encouraging that we should go and take a look, which we did. First of all we explored the possibility of seeing it from the car park of a Correctional Centre (prison) but no sooner had we arrived than we were instantly told to move on by a pleasant but stern policewoman. I did however manage to leap out of the car and take one photograph of the lighthouse in the distance. We went on to a number of other possible viewpoints without success. It seems that the closest points are all on restricted land. The best possibility was a Canadian Forces ammunition base and they were not prepared to let us in to see a lighthouse.

We stopped off in a local store to ask some of the locals and got some leads for possible charter services so there was a distinct possibility, with reasonable weather, that I should be able to make it to the vicinity of the lighthouse during my stay.

The dangerous sea conditions around Race Rocks lighthouse are best illustrated in a story of tragedy soon after the lighthouse was established. The keeper was called George Davies and he lived there with his wife and three children. They had come from England in December 1860 to be the first guardians of this light. On Christmas Day 1865 they were expecting a visit from their family back home. As the boat containing their relatives and other friends arrived, just 6 m from the shore it got caught in a riptide and overturned with the loss of all on board. In 1866, again at Christmas, George Davies became very ill And although his wife flew a distressed flag for two weeks, no one came to help. George died on December 14.

Today, the Race Rocks group of small islets are part of a nature reserve that are managed by Pearson College. Boats go there from Pedder Bay, and despite enquiries from us about joining one of their visits, we got no luck from that quarter.

After a few days of planning we finally came up with a solution that would allow us to get close to the Race Rocks, as well as a second nearby lighthouse site in the Trial Islands. Fortunately, we were able to find a wonderful retired Canadian fisherman who generously offered to give his boat a much-needed workout at this time of year - it was January!

Trial Islands lighthouse

The Trial Islands lighthouse was built in 1906 in a period of lighthouse expansion at the start of the twentieth century. When the appointed day arrived the weather was good and we could get some nice views of the mountains of the Olympic range to the south of the Juan de Fuca Strait. Our skipper was due to take us to these lighthouses in his boat launched from the Esquimault Bay Anglers Association. A well maintained launching slipway with professional landing stages made it a simple process, observed by a couple of friendly seals who saw us as good for some fish. They were unlucky on this occasion.

After launching the boat at 0900 we set off on the southwesterly bearing towards the Race Rocks group of islets. The weather was sunny and the winds were light at this point in the day. Visibility was good and there were many close encounters with seabirds along the way, some of them crossing our bow in significant flocks.

At last I was close enough to get a good telephoto shot. But, even with a good skipper, sea conditions are deceptive. So, remembering that Christmas day tragedy, we did not venture closer.

We were at Race Rocks by 0945, a distance of 16 km. The sea was a gentle chop on the way out but got noticeably worse in the vicinity of the lighthouse where its dangerous tidal streams are at their worst. We ticked over about 100 m off the rocks and took photos before setting off back across the bay towards Trial Islands. A constant hazard was the amount of wooden debris afloat from the many years of logging operations. The larger items of flotsam would cause significant damage to a small boat like ours if they were hit so we were on constant alert. We were also in a shipping lane used by numerous medium sized freighters, requiring constant attention.

Approaching Trial Islands from the landward side at about 1015, we drifted out on the east side where the sun was shining onto the station. Although we believed there to be keepers still serving here - they had been reprieved from redundancy in 2015 - we saw no sign of them. The station nevertheless looked well maintained. We then turned towards Providence Island where there was a lighthouse that is not visible from the shore. However the sea conditions were not appropriate to our safety and comfort so we turned back and returned to base, but not before getting a close look at the small harbour light on the eastern breakwater of Victoria harbour.

We arrived back at 1100 having had a very successful trip in very gentle conditions for the time of year.

The lighthouse on the pier in Victoria Harbour.

Lighthouse Postcards

Ken Trethewey — Sun, 31 May 2026 05:01:51 GMT

Images like this one of North Foreland lighthouse were amongst the most common of all the postcards of lighthouses that were published.

There is something about a postcard that gives a slight tingle. With images emblazoned on the front that are instantly recognizable to many, the reverse carries a very personal one-to-one message, highly condensed - like the phone text of today.

“Hello you! I am nearly burnt black with the sun. Having a glorious time. Love S.”

The only thing missing is the smiling-face-with-shades emoji.

Such a message might seem trivial to you and me, but to historians it can sometimes reveal a lot. For example, a message such as this, with a readable postmark, can convey a useful historical fact.

“Visited the lighthouse today, but it was shut.”

In the old days of collecting it only took a moment after a collector of lighthouse postcards had decided to visit a postcard fair. He arrived at the dealer’s stand with a mixture of subdued excitement and resigned indifference. He thumbed through the index cards to ‘L’ wondering how many would be in the slot. A lot or a few? If it should be a lot then his temperature would rise until he saw the same old images – Beachy Head, The Needles, Smeaton’s tower on Plymouth Hoe... Then his sense of expectation might be dissipated, as it had been so many times before.

Today’s postcard collector, working on E-Bay without even rising from his sofa, soon gets to know which cards sold a lot in the early 20th century. One contender for top spot - besides Smeaton’s Tower on Plymouth Hoe, is North Foreland. It wasn’t that the lighthouse was daily crammed with visitors (although it would have done well on that index) but more to do with the proximity to London and the number of popular resorts nearby.

A card written to Cissie (who lives in London) from Annie tells how she is enjoying her holiday in Margate and how “tomorrow” she will be checking out Ramsgate. At this time in August 1913, she has found Margate to be crowded and expects Ramsgate to be no different. We don’t know whether she visits the North Foreland lighthouse but she would almost certainly have passed it on her way between the two locations. I would expect many Londoners to be quite familiar with the lighthouse, and Annie must have been attracted to the image and bought the card in Margate to tell her sister how she is enjoying her holiday. Her reference to the “Mad Cap” leaves us wanting more, however. But, limited by space, the conciseness of the message is the prevailing factor here.

We are indebted to the legacy left to us by the old publishers of lighthouse postcards, for as historical documents - if only for their images - they are hard to beat. We have therefore used them liberally throughout this work. As lifetime collectors of lighthouse postcards, we are especially aware that, notwithstanding the great number of different cards of North Foreland that were published, there is little variation in the image used. Whether in landscape or portrait orientation, we need no words to tell us that the lighthouse is a tall, octagonal, stone tower with a keeper’s cottage symmetrically placed on either side. Occasionally, the view is broadened to include some of the adjacent road, but, as any visitor today will attest, the number of angles offering a good shot to the photographer are severely limited, especially as the surrounding vegetation has obscured much of its view. Thus it is not surprising that the range of postcards of North Foreland is so limited. What is more surprising is the great number of times it has been photographed. Other observations are that there has been so little change to the station buildings and layout over so many years, although that does not apply to the great changes to the adjacent trees and shrubs. What appear to be open landscapes have become crowded with undergrowth and overgrowth.

This postcard of Godrevy is an excellent illustration of how the same piece of art was used in different ways. This card has been hand-coloured and the titles added in imitation gold. The card has also been sprinkled in glitter much of which remains in place today. Sadly, there is no postmark or stamp, but we can be sure it was published in the nineteen noughties since we have other cards of the Tuck “Oilette” series - British Lighthouses, Series III, from 1908. Godrevy was an especially popular subject for a card for visitors to St. Ives because it was the one written about by Virginia Wolf in her popular book, “To The Lighthouse.”

Earliest black-and-white photography began to be developed in the early 1830s thanks to people such as Daguerre and Fox Talbot. Clearly it was some years for it to be capable of commercialization. It took until 1888 when Eastman’s Kodak camera went on sale, and it was a further twenty years before photographers could commonly create colour photographs. So those in the growing business of publishing postcards needed to change their methods as the economics evolved.

In the earliest years, postcards were a very popular way of maintaining easy contact when telephones were only for businesses and those who were better off. With photographic processes still quite expensive, publishers commissioned artists to make the images, and this was especially true for the conveyance of messages like Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday. But soon monochrome photographs became cheaper than people labouring with their easels. Though black-and-white postcards were clearly very popular, to make them even more appealing it was quicker for the publishers to pay artists to add colour manually to the black-and-white photographic images which were often of poor quality. Thus many of the colour postcards around the early 20th century were of this nature until commercial reproduction of colour photographs became sufficiently economical.

Besides the obvious objective of conveying messages, publishers soon recognized the attraction of collectibility and began publishing series of cards with common features and designs. One of the most prolific was the “Oilette” postcard by Raphael Tuck and Sons, which over a long period became extremely popular. As many as twenty-six thousand such collectible images were published from the early 1900s onwards, and the lighthouses at both North and South Forelands were featured.

Throughout the twentieth century, North Foreland lighthouse was far better known than its sisters in the south and we have seen how the holiday postcard has had a lot to do with that. Indeed, the fame of North Foreland has undoubtedly helped to shape the English perception of a lighthouse in the minds of those who know little about them. As we now know, the history of the South Foreland lighthouses is enormously more significant than their northern sister where the story is one of steadfast reliability. So it is either very fitting or simply ironic that since the takeover of South Foreland by the National Trust the reverse is now the case. Limited opening of the Broadstairs light has severely restricted our appreciation of its wonderful fixtures and fittings, whilst the Dover location receives great numbers of eager visits throughout the long opening times.

I began collecting lighthouse postcards in 1965, when there were hardly any books in the shops about lighthouses. Information and pictures were hard to find. Enquiries to Trinity House were met with the very minimum of response and finding out about lighthouses was tough for a teenager with a crush. Postcards were cheap and small; they matched my modest pocket money and the collection didn’t take up much room. (Huh! Today, people collect cars!) So, for me, as a young tourist, looking for lighthouse postcards in shops was a lot of fun.

The collection grew quite fast at first. Of course, these were all “new” cards unused because I just wanted to collect them. Later, as word spread amongst friends and family, I would be sent cards through the post, or given used cards that had been collected on my behalf. That’s when the crush became an obsession.

I began to realise that postcards had been enormously popular with earlier generations and that collecting postcards, like stamps, was a common hobby. Cigarette cards had been a thing of the 30s when everybody smoked, and I was lucky to be given the only set showing lighthouses when I was 15. I never knew anyone who collected matchboxes. There were many topics on postcards that you could focus on castles, railways or ships, for example, but I found that my interest in lighthouses was unusual and well worth spending time and money to find. With eBay not even a glimmer in my eye, I began attending antiques fairs where there were traders who specialised in cards of different kinds, and as my collection of antiquarian cards grew mostly from the early part of the twentieth century I became enslaved to the target of collecting cards of all the lighthouses in the UK. It seemed a reasonable objective then, but after sixty years I’m still trying...

The Origin of the Postcard

One theory concerning the origin of the postcard is that it was first used at the AustroGerman Postal Conference of 1865, but details are vague. A second is that in 1870 an army of 80,000 men were camped together in a French battlefield with nothing to do. Correspondence with families provided comfort for them, until they had used up all the paper supplies in the area. A stationer named Léon Besnardeau, who worked close to the camp, came up with the idea of cutting the covers of notebooks into small rectangles, since the pages had already been sold. This new resource was exhausted quickly, so he had blank cards printed instead. In 1872, the postcard in a standard size of 8 cm x 12 cm (3.15 in x 4.72 in) was officially incorporated into French law as a formal means of communication by post. Made of card, they were blank on one side for writing the message and printed on the other side for the address. No images were used at first. The first French illustrated postcards were published in 1889 to celebrate the Universal Exhibition and it was years later before images were allowed in Britain.

The British Postal Museum tells us that the first postcards were introduced in AustroHungary in 1869 and in Britain the following year. (Remember, we had invented the postage stamp in 1840 so we couldn’t do everything.) Commissioned by the British Post Office, the first cards were a maximum of 9 cm x 14 cm (3.5 x 5.5 in), a size that remained constant until well after WWII when everything got bigger. The postcard included an imprinted halfpenny stamp that covered the price of postage and was half that of a letter one penny. The rate for a British card remained the same at one halfpenny until June 1918 when it was increased to a penny. The postage stamp, of course, showed the head of the reigning monarch, Queen Victoria in this case, now a rare find on a postcard. Stamps that had already been purchased could be used after the monarch’s image changed and so when we are lucky enough to find a card having a Victoria stamp, we notice that it may have been posted long after she had died on 22 Jan 1901. Following Victoria, the stamps bore the image of Edward VII until 1910 and then George V until 1936 (always looking to the left), although again there was overlap in usage as the printing presses caught up. Apart from a short period, the price remained constant with a red one penny stamp until May 1940.

The Art of Communication

The invention of the lowly postcard revolutionised social culture in much the same way as phone-texting today. Letter-writing was considered to be a formal process that took time and needed to conform to rules of etiquette. However, the postcard broke all those rules and became exceedingly popular as a quick and inexpensive form of communication.

Whilst most of us associate postcards with pictures, illustrated postcards produced by private publishers were not accepted by the Post Office until 1894. In these designs, one whole side of the card was used for the address and the stamp, with the message being squeezed into a small space alongside the picture. (Curiously, in France, it was allowable to stick the stamp onto the picture itself.) It wasn’t until 1902 that the message could be written on the same side as the address. Then we begin to see the postcard with a divided back, where the address is written on the right and the message on the left. The emoji, invented in Japan in 1999, was still a century away

So what of the picture to be used?

Clearly, the use of an image on a postcard was dependent upon the development of photography and printing techniques. Earliest black-and-white photography began to be developed in the early 1830s thanks to people such as Daguerre and Fox Talbot. Clearly some decades would be needed for it to be capable of commercialization for printing in large numbers.

It took until 1888 when Eastman’s Kodak camera went on sale to the masses, and it was a further twenty years before photographers could commonly create colour photographs. So those in the growing business of publishing postcards needed to change their methods as the economics evolved and these changes are clearly evident in any good postcard collection.

With photographic processes still quite expensive, postcard publishers commissioned artists to make the images, and this was especially true for the conveyance of messages like “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Birthday”. Yes, the traditional greetings cards that are such big business today started out as simple postcards costing just a few pence. But soon monochrome photographs became cheaper than people labouring with their pens, brushes easels.

Though black-and-white postcards with images were clearly very popular, to make them even more appealing, it was quicker for the publishers to pay artists to add colour manually to the monochrome photographic images which were often of poor quality. Thus many of the colour postcards from around the early 20th century were of this nature until commercial reproduction of colour photographs became sufficiently economical in times around the 1940s.

Besides the obvious objective of conveying messages, publishers soon recognized the attraction of collectability and began publishing series of cards with common features and designs. One of the most prolific was the “Oilette” postcard by Raphael Tuck and Sons, which over a long period became extremely popular. As many as twenty-six thousand such different images were published by Tuck from the early 1900s onwards. There must have been a whole army of artists out there, supplying works to be made into postcards. It’s a pity that line of work was not available to Van Gogh! I notice that these cards bore the Royal Crest so they made an impact in the Palace! Sadly, despite so many designs, there was a disappointingly small number of cards featuring lighthouses.

The lighthouse was a common choice for sending messages because of its strong association with the preservation of life, being a beacon of hope and love, and so on ... The strapline of “Hands Across the Sea” was very popular at the time, though it has long ago faded from use, no doubt accelerated by the replacement of the ocean liner by air travel .

Whilst some cards were made for Christmas and had limited time period in which to be sold, other cards for Birthday Greetings could be sold all year round and this one is typical, artistically enhanced and embossed for maximum appeal and only loosley promoting the Eddystone lighthouse! Published in 1903, this card was posted in Exeter in 1908.

This is one of the only cards I have ever seen that acknowledges the work of the light keeper, here at Silloth.

The Most Popular Postcards

The most popular lighthouse postcards correspond to the lights closest to the major tourist destinations. And in the early 20th century by far the most tourists emanated from London, often simply as day-trippers to Essex and north Kent. Beachy Head was a much visited destination for visitors to Eastbourne, and the cards of the clifftop lighthouse known as Belle Toute were printed in large numbers. But the new lighthouse built below the cliffs was completed in 1902. Any new lighthouse in those days attracted much attention, and the spectacular view of it from the clifftop attracted great interest and was the one most experimented with by photographers looking for new angles. The closeup, sea-level view was curiously less popular, presumably for its lower dramatic impact on those with little engineering interest. Beachy Head is probably the most common postcard available today.

Another much visited lighthouse for R&R-seeking Londoners was North Foreland. This was a great alternative to a wet day on Margate beach and a convenient bus ride away. The attractions of Broadstairs also helped to maximise the pleasure of the day out. From the photographic point-of-view however, there was really only one angle to take a photograph of North Foreland and the published postcards show very little variation. Indeed, this was true of many other lighthouses that have really only one standout position from which to take a photograph. Godrevy lighthouse already mentioned is one, as too are Longships, Start Point and Trevose Head.

The Rare Cards

Some of the rarest lighthouse postcards (and hence the most expensive to buy) are to be found in sites where tourists fear to tread. Print runs were short and circulation strictly limited. This especially applies in Scotland where there are a great many remote lighthouses that attract little attention. However, there is also a class of lighthouse postcard that consists of real photographs that are printed on the reverse to make a card that was acceptable to the GPO. Some of these cards probably exist now in numbers counted on a few fingers and show views of a lighthouse that were simply never covered by the mainstream publishers.

Antiquarian lighthouse postcards are those published pre-Queen Elizabeth i.e. before 1950. Only the very rarest cards are worth £100 or more, perhaps with a Victoria stamp and postmark. Cards published after 1950 are worth only a couple of pounds at most. Cards of the commonest lights are of low value £1 at most. At the lower end of the value scale, you can Possibly double the value if the card is used and has a stamp and a legible postmark. There are some sellers asking £20-40 for cards in cats 2 and 3. This is unacceptable and should be avoided. Cards from overseas dealers, especially USA are almost always grossly overpriced and charge stupid amounts for postage. Be careful of postage charges. £2.75 to send a postcard to you is the most you should ever pay. Go for free postage deals. The last consideration is whether to “But It Now” or to bid by auction. There really is no way to predict what happens at auction and you might get a bargain or the price might go sky high. My advice is to make no bid at all until the last minutes. It’s bad on the nerves, but you will pay less for it in the end.

Obviously this is subjective advice based upon years of experience. It takes a great deal of experience to differentiate between the rare cards and those that are prolific. Ultimately, you will pay what you feel a card is worth to you. But, apart from the very rarest cards, I would advise you to wait, for the market is large and a similar card could easily come up at a more economical price.

Lundy Old Lighthouse

Ken Trethewey — Wed, 27 May 2026 05:02:18 GMT

The Lundy Old Lighthouse, 2025

In the autumn of 2025, I stayed in the old lighthouse on Lundy with a group of friends. Now disused for over 120 years, the beautifully restored and managed lighthouse is available for holiday accommodation and the experience of being on Lundy is something you’ll never forget.

Lundy is an island of walls. Some you see - others you don’t. In the first category are the obvious kind. For instance, three stone walls known as quarter island, half island and three quarter island walls cross the entire width at appropriate points, delineating the areas of land that were once of importance to those who carved a life for themselves from this bleak, beautiful landscape. Then there are the less obvious ones, for example, the Great Wall of Granite around the edge that hems you in, and prevents you getting off this huge, high, flat-topped mass in the middle of the Bristol Channel and amounts to a huge barrier to ships. On the map, Lundy looks like a centipede trained to sit up and beg. It is about 5 km long and 1 km wide. On the east the coast is quite vertical to a height of 143 metres (500 feet) and modestly indented in the south. But on the west, the characteristic form is of promontories to die for with a thousand ragged striations and islands that reach into the sea, making the coast look like the torn end of last year’s windsock.

There are many other walls too, for humans depend on them for so much. With arable farming almost impossible, walls are necessary for animal husbandry, providing both shelter and security to the cattle, sheep, goats and horses without which life would have been impossible here. Without walls there is shelter here for no-one except, perhaps, cave dwellers. We stayed in the old lighthouse. It too has its own walled enclosure, a site carved out by Trinity House from the private property of an individual fortunate enough to be able to say it was his own. A simple wooden stile and a gate offer different ways through this wall, but one of the grandest lighthouses in England is composed of the finest walls built anywhere. These were skilfully groomed from the hardest materials to resist eroding environments and provide safety and security to those who would offer the same to those in peril on the seas below.

The entrance is through a solid, heavy, wooden door that would defeat many hands, its circular wrought iron handle and lever braced to withstand the impact of a severe gale. Closing the door behind me after exposure to the raw clutches of nature I found it to be just like the feeling of sanctuary when entering a church. The bare stone interior reinforces the church-like, sacred atmosphere. The echoes from the walls and the great solidity of the place seem to overwhelm any feeling of insecurity one might have after a long trudge across wet, cold, unforgiving moorland. The clunk of the door latch as it falls into its slot is as solid as a bank vault closure: no Force 12 gales here.

I turned right towards the beautiful stone staircase that leads to the accommodation known as Old Light Upper, once home to the Assistant Keeper and his family. Downstairs was the equivalent lower accommodation for the Principal. Comfortably furnished, even in 1820, the apartment must have been quite luxurious, dominated by three strikingly beautiful stone fireplaces made from granite monoliths miraculously hoisted into place by clever craftsmen exactly 200 years ago. The brown-painted sash windows can be made to hide behind wooden shutters that control the weather well, though the noise of it is another matter, for the downdraught from the chimneys can efficiently interfere with the prospect of a good night’s sleep.

Here on the top of the island it seems to be all or nothing. With a 360-degree panorama it might as well be the summit of Everest, in terms of the view, yet, as the lighthouse authorities found in the 19th century, there are so many times when the view from the windows just disappears. A lighthouse can serve no function at all in such weather, which is frequent, sudden to change and may be long lasting. For example, during our stay, from 1500 on Wednesday until 1300 on Thursday there was no possibility of seeing the lighthouse from the sea, no chance of light from the lighthouse lantern reaching any part of the waters so far below. I continually thought of the Gunners. For some 22 hours they would have been firing their cannon at ten-minute intervals. No break, no let-up from the relentless work of loading and firing, loading and firing...

The Lundy Fog Signal Gun, 2025

It is quite incomprehensible that in the mid-19th century a man walked along the cliff top on the west coast of Lundy looking for a site for a gun emplacement. The situation had become so bad with ships driving straight into the great walls of granite in fog, that a wise individual had finally made the decision to use periodic cannon fire to warn ships of the presence of Lundy. It seemed sensible to a man in an office, a committee of experienced men around a table. Our surveyor made his decision. He turned to to his assistant and pointed. “Down there.” His assistant must have thought his boss had gone mad - some indigenous Lundy disease of the mind perhaps? Here, in the middle of nowhere, some 500 feet above a boiling sea with terrifying precipices abounding, it was decided to cut a steep approach path halfway down the precipice to a place where two flat areas could be carved out of the cliff face. Flights of stone steps, down, down, around, down again, more steps, Oh, and all cut in beside a wall to keep folks from falling into the abyss. On the first flat, sheltered amongst the granite tumuli, would be a cottage for two families and a couple of outhouses. On the second, lower level in a much more exposed position, would be a gun battery with two large cannon. These would be fired at intervals of ten minutes during fog in the hope that captains of vessels steering straight towards the island would hear the warning and change course, somehow avoiding a collision with this immense, immovable object, whilst totally blind. The work involved in building this facility was mad enough. The work of the gunners was something else entirely. The fogs could last for days. Every ten minutes? Really? How will my family sleep through that? How will I stay awake? How will I keep going in sub-zero temperatures, gale force winds and torrential rain? At least the light keepers worked inside the lighthouse. At least they did not show lights during daylight hours!

Lundy has been a privately-owned island for most of 1000 years, although there is evidence of Bronze Age habitation as well as an early Christian presence from around 500 to 700 CE. Lundy’s recorded history begins with ownership by the Norman de Marisco family, loosely related to William I. A certain misdemeanour caused the first owner, William, to be hung drawn and quartered in 1242, so the era was clearly marked by loose living and lawlessness leading to treason. Depriving the Marisco family of their possessions, Henry III built a castle on Lundy in 1244, a building that is in use today as holiday apartments. For centuries Lundy continued to exist on the edge of civilisation, with stories of smuggling and other forms of traditional crime. A merchant from Bideford, Thomas Benson, bought it in 1748 and misappropriated its ownership by smuggling and other nefarious practices. Then, as if in penance for past crimes, the island entered a strong moral phase under the ownership of a priest, most appropriately named Reverend Heaven, whose ambition was to build an Anglican church on the island. This was eventually realised by the construction of the beautifully preserved church of St. Helen at the end of the 19th century thanks to a benefactor. The vicar had unfortunately run out of money building his beautiful home, the luxurious mansion called Millcombe House, in the most sheltered place on the island, a tiny paradise where water can be controlled and trees can grow. Evidence of mature shrubs amid beautiful gardens with terraced footpaths and what must have been idyllic surroundings is still evident today.

In the early half of the 20th century, the island was curated by the Harman family for a time before being purchased for the nation in the 1960s. Today the island is home to about 25 permanent staff who work for either the National Trust, which now owns the island, or the Landmark Trust, which administers it. Some volunteers share the daily duties of running the holiday accommodation service as well as husbandry of the island’s priceless natural resources. A working farm manages sheep, pigs and horses and a variety of other small scale farming activities, but no arable farming.

Around 25 varied accommodations are available for holidays that range in duration and location, and the staff are employed in all aspects of making the operation work smoothly. The sole landing area is at the severe southeast tail where a modern pier and facilities have been a great improvement for travellers from the original small boat landings on the island’s only beach. The dedicated ferry, the MS Oldenburg, in service since 1986, operates from Ilfracombe and Bideford and the two-hour crossing offers the chance to glimpse dolphins, gannets and other wonderful wildlife. Once ashore, the transfer of luggage and supplies from the landing stage to the village at the top of the flat top granite island is made simple by the friendly staff who make the island facilities run as smoothly as a drink of beer in the village after a long day’s walk. Here, all of the available built structures have been renovated and converted to make optimum use, whether for garaging the farm equipment, the half dozen Land Rovers, or the island’s own fire and rescue vehicle and water bowser. With a certain amount of old fortification still present, the battlemented walls present additional shelter and relief from the meteorological forces that frequently batter the community. From here, where there is a Tavern, a shop, island offices, and numerous other facilities, the arriving visitors fan out amongst the numerous properties, whether castle or chalet, some of them gathered snugly together around little focal points, others spread out in isolated locations around the southern quarter of the island.

Above the village to the north, Lundy is effectively deserted, a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) for the sake of the prodigious number of animal and plant species that survive in tough conditions, where the landscape varies between quite lush pasture in the south to barren heathland in the north. The absence of significant soil in the north and the harsh changes in weather conditions in no way hamper the survival of those species that have evolved to thrive there. In addition, the residency offered to a flock of rare Soay sheep was taken up eagerly by creatures bred to cope well with just this kind of terrain. And everywhere is the stunningly aggressive rockscape of granite compilations, often many hundreds of feet high and of unimaginable mass, reaching out into the blue-grey depths of the white-crested sea. Each is so remarkable that they all have names, often those of saints as if to defy them to cause harm to humans.

Very little evidence of human presence exists on the top three tiers of Lundy, except at the very northern point where Trinity House placed one of two highly advanced lighthouses in 1897. Sadly, today it is in a sorry state, although there was renovation work in progress during our visit. But the empty lantern is an indictment of modern times, the grand light station having been substituted by a single small revolving light mounted out front and powered by a handful of solar panels, the powerful array of Tannoy speakers that saved the Gunners from Hell, shouting no more. The lantern is rusting and decayed, the buildings are in desperate need of care and attention and the possibility that one day this beautiful location might become the temporary home of hardy holidaymakers is just a heartwarming “Perhaps?” I use the word “hardy,” to describe my holidaymakers because the access to this place requires people with a good measure of fitness to mange the many steps and steep slopes, but I am certain there are many such individuals who would love to stay here in peace and solitude. One such alternative is the building known as Tibbett’s Cottage the most northerly of those available and a fine example of an old functional building - a Lloyd’s signal station- converted to a comfortable isolated holiday cottage. The restoration is superb, with an immaculate weed-free circular wall surrounding a similarly beautiful stone house that looks perfect to its intended use.

Sparrows, stonechats, pippets, starlings and wheatears were easy to observe; skylarks ascending noisily above the heathland were easily heard but so rarely seen. A group of Soay sheep inhabit the northern reaches, a rear breed with a mere thousand breeding ewes. Originally from St. Kilda, they are hardy and independent preferring the company of small groups rather than flocks. They climb the steep cliffs as would mountain goats, their dark rear ends pointed at visitors but showing a flash of cream amid the browns and blacks.

Heather was in profusion in its shades of light pinks, an d deep purples, gorse in yellow, and a special plant called Lundy cabbage bears a name that is rather insulting to this lovely delicate four-petal yellow flower that is all over the island. A number of different varieties of fungi were on display along the grassy walks along the cliff tops.

In the water, seals were a constant source of entertainment, whether for their comic head bobbing curiosity, their howling, or their nonchalant sun bathing on the rocks around and about. Unfortunately, the puffins had already left for the season when we got there, indeed the numbers of sea birds in evidence was somewhat disappointing to a non expert like me. However, it was possible to see many cormorants, shags, guillemots, razorbills, and even a gannet or two. Dolphins and porpoises made their presence known in both directions, indeed it seems that a small pod of three dolphins were loitering in the ferry lane to make our acquaintance in passing.

Lundy South Light, 2025

The south lighthouse was rather better appointed than its northern sibling, externally bright and clean in its white livery, and a new LED optical system installed in the lantern. The climb up to is extraordinarily steep flights of steps and its island top location is curiously cradled between two lumps of rock. On the seaward end of the point the rock has been carved flat to accommodate the helicopter landing pad. Beneath the pad is a hollowed out cave suitable for storage of gear. Once again, precipitous drops surround the site that has seen much drama over the past century or two. Probably the most dramatic was the running aground of the battleship HMS Montagu which took two years to salvage, but was never used again.

The supertyphon horns are clearly mounted above the lantern and the short stone tower looks ready for another century of active service.

The architecture of the old lighthouse is a joy to behold, its crisp-cut stonework being a standout feature when close up. The house has a stone roof with beautifully angled lines and stone windows of generous size protecting their glazing with deep recesses that from inside feel like human blinkers as they restrict lateral views. The magnificent stone tower has great carvings of granite, smooth-faced on the external surface, but with sloping infills of small fragments to overcome the mismatch on the joins. The large dimensions at the base diminish gradually with height, penetrated and punctuated by neat, square windows and a particularly fine cornice like a croupier’s eye shade.

When built the lighthouse cost £36,000, a princely sum for its time in an age when such constructions were statements of intent, unconstrained by economics, and driven by engineering ambition combined with artistic flair. The architect, Daniel Alexander, was working with a slate that was clean apart from two drawings of the Smeaton Eddystone and the old Scilly lighthouse, a much less ambitious project. His desire for perfection is obvious. A ground floor observatory is outside an ante-chamber that must have performed valuable functions, and the base level of the tower is spacious and useful. The internal spiral stone staircase is formed clockwise around the massive block pillar and leads up to three more rooms below the lantern.

A room dedicated to the showing of a lower light? Space to store the large amount of consumables that would have been necessary to light such an important location over a great distance. It was essential for this light to be as powerful as possible because of its central position in the Bristol Channel and because of the great expanse of sea to be illuminated.

In the lantern one feels that the architect must have visited the Eddystone for his split level design having an elevated working area above the lantern floor so as to keep the light unobstructed by human activity going on there, could have been spoiled from Smeaton’s successful concept. The vacant lantern is large and spacious. A metal walkway surrounds the circular, elevated, metal table on which the revolving dioptric oil lights were mounted, driven by clockwork by the usual falling weight mechanism. A nice modern touch is the location of two beach chairs where the apparatus would have rested. Now tourists rest there instead.

The Beacon Hill Cemetery immediately outside the lighthouse perimeter adds enormous atmosphere to the situation, its presence long preceding the arrival of the lighthouse, magnificent though it is. Here were buried those who had lived on the island for many years, perhaps a lifetime, as well as those who had perished here in tragic circumstances. On the left side of the cemetery facing the lighthouse were four ancient memorials from the earliest Christian times, luckily preserved in full view, even if their inscriptions had long ago been eroded into obscurity. The shape of the cross was ever-present on the skyline at this site close to heaven where the coincidence of the clergyman and owner having the same name led to Lundy acquiring the rather obvious nickname of the “Kingdom of Heaven.” Walking into this sacred ground, its protective wall adding privacy to the dead and control to those who might innocently intrude, the long, uncut strands of moor grass formed into mounds over the many burial places yet concealed deep crevices between the hillocks. The overgrowth of ferns, bracken and brambles spoke the words “Keep out of here,” so I did, carefully keeping to the few paths that had been trampled in over time. Most predominant were the graves of the island’s owners, with so much untold about island life and so few words to sum up their contributions to the island’s history. Somehow, I felt this was the most neglected part of an island where human presence had been otherwise so carefully conserved by its heritage-keepers. Perhaps the academic members of the Lundy Field Society have already documented the resting places of so many souls of this place? One would like to think so.

To visit Lundy is a privilege and a pleasure, but you must be prepared for total exposure to the natural world, for here it is preserved as well as anywhere. This high-altitude living means a life that is often spent in the clouds, whilst surrounded by staggering views of unimaginably old landscapes and rock formations that defy belief. Prepare to be concurrently exhausted and exhilarated, breathless from physical effort on the one hand, and the sight of such beauty on the other. It is a spectrum of experience that few other places can offer in the modern world. And if you go there, and if your entire vision of Lundy is wiped clean by all-embracing mist, just remember those poor gunners.

Fortunately, since the time of writing this in 2020 the north lighthouse has now been restored in 2026.

Avonmouth

Ken Trethewey — Fri, 22 May 2026 05:39:48 GMT

The lighthouse on the north pier at Avonmouth Docks

How many times have you driven over the Avon bridge on the M5 at Bristol? Perhaps, as the driver, your eyes were rightly fixed on the road, but you surely cannot have missed the huge car park below on the side of the Bristol Channel? Maybe it’s only lighthouse enthusiasts who notice the two lighthouses - one on the end of each of the two piers that guard the Avonmouth Docks. With these two lighthouses contained within the busy private land of the Docks, it needed special permission for us to view them at close quarters.

We were welcomed into Avonmouth Docks by two professional women who formed the team that were in charge of all of the navigational lights on the Avon. We were in the HQ building just outside the security fence, given hi-vis vests and then our convoy of three cars headed off, led by one of their 4WD vehicles, and followed up by another. We passed through the transport police checkpoint and were led towards the south light. The weather was overcast and threatening rain with winds that were gale force and quite able to lift you off your feet. The docks are enormous and the empty spaces are filled with thousands of imported cars - mostly Japanese EVs. It is quite surreal driving so close past line after line of identical brand new cars.

There are two lovely stone lighthouses - one on the end of each pier. The south tower was completed in 1904 and its taller twin in 1905. Both were in lovely condition outside, although the south tower had its cupola strapped on as it had become loose. Repairs were imminent, we were told, so we could not go inside. The tower had a beautiful old bell attached to its gallery. The blue harbour light was now a most insignificant little unit mounted on a pole at the very end of the pier.

It was a ten minute drive from the south tower to the north tower as we had to drive all around the inland waterways. In contrast to the south pier, which was quite short and straight, the north tower was significantly longer and curved. An old railway track was embedded in the structure which was used to unload cargoes from the old ships moored alongside and a decrepit wooden carcass of unknown purpose dominated the exterior of the pier. In the distance we could see the PoW bridge carrying M4 traffic between Enland and Wales, at the end of a long, purposeless industrial shoreline, apart from several wind turbines.

The north tower, built to the same design as the south, but with an extra internal floor was in a similar good structural condition, although the lantern glass was rather in need of attention. Once again, we could not enter because of a nesting bird inside - one of the more frustrating excuses I have heard. However, we were allowed to see inside the ground level and take some photos.

The lighthouse on the south pier at Avonmouth Docks

Inside the north tower we see the familiar weight tube, the cylinder down which the weight fell as it drove the clockwork mechanism for the rotation of the optic.

The old Avon (Avonmouth) lighthouse

What many of us do not know is that there was once a beautiful old lighthouse here. It was built in 1839 by Trinity House at a cost of £8,219 and was situated on the north-eastern side of the River Avon, roughly where the Avonmouth Docks are today. It was an 85-foot stone-built octagonal castellated tower with two six-roomed keepers’ houses attached. Its light was first exhibited on 25th May 1840, showing a fixed white light at 73 feet elevation, visible for 14 miles. On that day, the lighthouse was manned by two keepers, Charles Edwards (35) and Henry Harris (34), enjoying what (for Trinity house buildings) must have been quite extravagant accommodation; I am unable to think of any other three-story lighthouse cottages. By the time of its demolition it was tended by James Troth (59) and his wife Louisa (58), who, rarely in the 20th century at least, was recorded as a (female) assistant light keeper.

The light was made redundant in 1902 and the tower demolished to make way for the current Avonmouth Docks. The exact location is hard to pinpoint, but it stood on the at the south end of the site now occupied by the Royal Edward Dock, within what is today the Avonmouth Docks complex. Clearly, its location assisted ships entering the river Avon. Work on the Royal Edward Dock began in 1902, and the new docks were completed and opened in 1908.

The lighthouse would have been on the north-eastern bank of the Avon mouth within that general area, but since the entire landscape was dramatically remodelled when the dock was excavated, no surface trace remains and no more precise location appears to be recorded in publicly available sources.

Clearly the north and south pier lights needed to be managed and in 1921 we have three men recorded as their keepers. George Paddon (51) appears to have been supported by his brother Theodore (48), whilst a third keeper was named as Josiah Austin (51). All three were employed by Bristol Corporation.

A satellite map of Avonmouth showing the three lighthouses (yellow pins) of the North and South piers, and the approximate site of the old Avon lighthouse demolished in 1904.

The old OS Map showing the position of the lighthouse.

We often forget that in dense fog it was important to warn ships of hazards and one of the methods used was a this bell, mounted on the south pier lighthouse. Such bells are no longer used, and few remain, so this one is precious.

What a sad situation when we realise that these two beautiful lighthouses have been replaced by the modern light above and below: the unstoppable march of technology.

The World's Most Famous Lighthouse Photograph

Ken Trethewey — Mon, 18 May 2026 05:25:48 GMT

Possibly the most famous photograph of a lighthouse ever taken was this one, an image that has a story I can share with you.

In the years before drones became commonly available, two French photographers became world leaders in the art of lighthouse photography using helicopters to get the most exciting images we have ever seen. In 2002 I was invited to work with one of them, Jean Guichard, to write the English text to accompany a collection of his photographs in a book called North Atlantic Lighthouses. During some time I spent with Jean he told me about the occasion when he was lucky enough to capture the picture.

Nothing had been pre-planned because in these circumstances everything rests upon weather conditions that, as we know, are unpredictable. Jean had already been focussing his lens on the lighthouses of the Iles d’Ouessant, a small group of islands known to English sailors as Ushant, situated off the far western point of Britanny. As a Paris resident, Jean would wait until the weather conditions in the islands were most favourable whereupon he would quickly make his way there to join his chartered helicopter. By the time they arrived close to the lighthouse at La Jument, the seas were at their most violent, crashing around the lighthouse in the most dramatic way possible. One of the lighthouse keepers, wanting to know what was going on as a helicopter was hovering around his structure, made the incredibly dangerous decision to step outside, and so Jean was able to capture this amazing photograph that has since been printed worldwide. For Jean it was a coincidence made in Heaven; for the keeper it was almost a one-way ticket to visit Heaven.

We will never know if the keeper fully realised just how close to death he came by allowing his inquisitiveness to overcome his personal safety.

I wrote the text to accompany the collection of lighthouse photographs by Jean Guichard. The cover shows the lighthouse called La Jument which was the subject of the wonderful photograph taken by him that became world famous.

Further Reading

The study of lighthouses is called Pharology. Check out these two websites for everything you need to know:

The World Lighthouses Hub

The Detailed History of Lighthouses

Bull Point

Ken Trethewey — Sat, 16 May 2026 05:01:35 GMT

The Bull Point lighthouse is situated at one corner of a triangle of lights, the other two being Lundy South and Hartland Point. But it didn’t always look like it does here. The geology of the rocks makes cliff erosion a serious problem here. In September 1972 the principal keeper reported ground movement in the area of the engine room and the passage leading to the lighthouse, and that two-inch fissures were opening up. In the early hours of Sunday morning, 24 September, a 15 m portion of the cliff face crashed into the sea and a further 15 m subsided. Walls cracked and the engine-room/fog signal partly collapsed, leaving it in a dangerous condition and putting it out of action. Within days a black conical buoy had been laid, whilst a lightvessel was being prepared at the Trinity House Depot in Swansea. On 26 September, the lightvessel was moored on station and the buoy withdrawn. The lightvessel was established to provide an adequate fog signal to replace that which had been lost. Once a temporary fog signal had been placed on the headland, the lightvessel was withdrawn. Next, a temporary light tower, which had been in use at Braunton Sands retrieved and the optic installed into it. A makeshift hut was constructed for the three diaphone fog signals.

The lighthouse as it is today.

The decision to build a new lighthouse was made in March 1973 and a small piece of land was purchased from a local farmer. Work on the new lighthouse began in 1974 and completion occurred in July 1976. The total cost was £71,000. All the equipment dated from 1960 out of the old lighthouse could be re-used and automated after some modifications. The optic rotated on an AGA gearless pedestal and two fog detectors were installed. The plant from the collapsed engine room/ fog signal house was put back in use and the optic set up in the new lighthouse, its third site at Bull Point.

After automation in 1975, the station was monitored on site by an attendant and his wife. There was a control panel in the attendant’s home which enabled him to monitor the running of the equipment. Later developments enabled it to be monitored entirely from the main control centre at Harwich. (In the 2020s, this is the case for all the lighthouses under the management of Trinity House.)

George Knott was appointed the first PK at Bull Point so, as this had been our ‘family lighthouse,’ we made frequent visits to it over the years and were fortunate enough to capture the old lighthouse before the cliff fall.

George and Catherine Knott pose in front of their new station, soon after George is appointed the first Principal keeper at Bull Point.

My own visits here were in the early 1970s, just before these buildings were lost in the cliff fall. Readers with a sharper eye should note the particular design of the fog signal horns.

Hartland Point

Ken Trethewey — Fri, 15 May 2026 05:31:26 GMT

At the start of the twentieth century, the world was full of the optimism brought about by new technology, and lighthouses were at the forefront of the excitement. Details of the wonderful structures, and the lives and careers of those responsible for them have been published in detail elsewhere, so this short essay concentrates on a pictorial sketch of what has been happening at this location during this author’s lifetime. Hartland Point lighthouse, built by Sir James Douglass, was first lit with a paraffin burner in 1874, so by the turn of the century when electrification arrived it had been well established. In 1901, a light keeper called William Darling (a later relative of the Victorian heroine, Grace, but not her father) was serving here, taking care of a magnificent building filled with the latest technology for safety at sea.

The lighthouse postcard shown above was just one of thousands of its kind, conceived in a time before the selfie and the text, when ordinary families were beginning to enjoy holidays away from home and keen to communicate their news with friends and loved ones. In the first two decades of the 20th century the picture postcard business reached unparalleled levels of activity until technology found new things for people to do. Today, it is just a curiosity from the past. Postcards of Hartland Point lighthouse were common, but restricted to a single view from the same spot on the precipitous cliffs behind. Indeed, one of the first things viewers notice is how, subject to occasional serious rock falls, the cliffs nearby are very dangerous. The card above was created from a black and white photograph taken - rarely - from quite close inshore, probably as William Darling looked on. It is a view that few today are privileged to enjoy as the great reduction in traffic along the Bristol channel led to the discontinuation of this light in 2012. Today, the latest technology is contained in a small device mounted at the front of the old building and is of interest only, perhaps, to passing helmsmen on their leisure craft. The technology that once created demand for lighthouses like Hartland Point has also been the cause of their decline.

Hartland Point was fitted with a wonderful and rare bi-form optic until it became the victim of ‘modern’ technology.

The only good angle for a photo of Hartland Point taken in 1972 before the beautiful structure was emasculated.

My Visit on Friday, 11 August 1972

We arrived at Hartland Point at about 2 pm in beautiful weather. Visibility was perfect and through binoculars, we could pick out every detail of Lundy Island with crystal clarity though it’s just over 11 miles out in the Bristol channel. We could see the south light with its squat tower and white buildings nestling close to the sea, and high on Beacon Hill a tall grey disused tower could also be clearly seen.

The cliffs at Hartland point are quite precipitous and descent to the rocky beaches is both difficult and hazardous. The lighthouse itself is built on a promontory about 60 feet above the sea and cannot be seen by road until the very entrance is reached. On the summit of this headland is a Coast Guard station and by walking along the cliffs past the station, a magnificent view of the lighthouse is obtained.

From the outside, the building appears to be in need of a fresh coat of paint, the salt atmosphere having obviously taken its toll of the whitewash. The inside of the lighthouse was however in impeccable condition. I was not able to detect anything different about the tower from when I was last there (30 August 1971) and throughout the building a high level of cleanliness prevailed which could not have been exceeded since the building was erected by Bowen in 1874.

The 59 feet high tower consisted of a ground floor living room, the first floor Service room and a second floor lantern room. As a whole it gave a striking impression of functionality – its contents being purely consistent with its purpose. The living room contained a chair and a table on which a pile of magazines was neatly placed. On the wall, a map of the country showed the characteristics of the other lights under the management of Trinity House. A long, stone staircase led up on the left to the service room where a large glass cabinet filled with spare lamps thrust itself into view. On the other side of the room was a large grey box with dials, switches and lights which was the main electrical control unit for the lantern. The 15 steps of the ladder led up into the lantern room which was bare except for the large optic and a beautiful old clock with Hartland inscribed on the face.

The optic itself was in two identical halves at top and bottom. Each half contained six magnifying sections and the seventh blank side, the light being provided by a 3½ kW bulb with a life of 1000 hours and an auxiliary bulb mounted behind it. In the event of a failure by a bulb the auxiliary took over at once. The optic rested in a mercury bath with rollers positioned around the circumference to keep it level as it revolved once every 15 seconds. During this time the light magnified to 2¼ million candlepower, produced six flashes that could be seen 17 miles away on a clear night. If, however, visibility dropped below 2½ miles, the fog signal would give three quick blasts every 75 seconds.

The National Grid power lines of today are a far cry from the oil lamps which powered the light until electrification in 1927. Then, the rotation of the light was by a clockwork motor which used falling weights through the black tube in the centre of the tower, which could still be seen. The mechanism was still present, together with the winding spindle which had to be wound every four hours. (On the last visit they told us one hour.) Then too, the light was a red and white alternating flash. The clock mechanism was discontinued in 1964 and a small electric motor substituted with a second in case of failure.

The lighthouse in 2020 before a beautiful restoration by its current owners.

In its fine shape today. Thankfully, there are still people who care about these wonderful structures.

Further reading

Ken Trethewey: Lighthouses of Cornwall and Devon, Jazz-Fusion Books (2020) and Ken Trethewey: Light on the Forelands, Jazz-Fusion Books (2022).

Lighthouse Family

Ken Trethewey — Thu, 14 May 2026 05:39:47 GMT

George Knott with his model of Bull Point lighthouse

There are a number of natural stages in the process of developing an interest. At first, you know very little and you look for anything that might be relevant, but fairly soon after that, you start to develop a focus. You subconsciously develop your own ground rules for carrying out your interest, usually in whatever way provides you with the greatest satisfaction. In lighthouses, the fascination is usually with those wonderful wave-swept towers that stand in murderous seas. This, of course, is why Jean Guichard and Philippe Plisson have achieved so much success with their fabulous photography, for not only is their work so dramatic and beautiful, but almost everyone finds that the image of a wave-swept lighthouse strikes a chord somewhere deep in their soul. Anyway, in my case, not only was I living in a region steeped in the history of such lighthouses but also my ancestors had actually lived in them!

Of course, there is still a very high level of satisfaction to be gained from the various landfall and coastal lighthouses. My focus was targeted at these types of lighthouses in my area. I could visit them, take photographs and generally soak up the wonderful experience of actually being there. After all, lighthouses, by definition, are built in places where there is a danger to shipping. This means, dangerous rocks, rugged cliffs and all that; in other words, lighthouses usually occupy very beautiful locations.

A casual interest is fine. You are at total liberty to choose what areas of interest you. For me, it began with Trinity House lighthouses, but quickly expanded to include Scottish lighthouses. I remember deciding quite early that I would draw a line between lighthouses and lightships. Thus, I mostly ignored lightships for many years, until comparatively recently when I have found it necessary to include them for cataloguing purposes. My sharp focus on lighthouses beyond the shores of my own country is a comparatively recent one, beginning with my creation of one of the early lighthouse websites in 1994. Thus I shamefully admit to having been in the vicinity of a number of important lighthouses abroad, but not having visited them. Cape Henry in Virginia at once springs to mind, for I have been to Norfolk Virginia on two occasions and not visited it. Once you have acquired a broad focus, it is incomprehensible that you could have ignored things that you now consider important.

Once you start to take a subject seriously, you come up against some hard decisions. For instance, what is a lighthouse? Where do I draw my boundaries when I decide whether to include things or not? This question has preoccupied me greatly in recent years. Following many discussions with other lighthouse friends, the issue is now completely resolved in an academic paper that I have recently published. Much more will be said on these topics later.

It soon became clear that the part of my family tree that related to lighthouse keepers was only partially known. There was a good reason for this. My great great grandfather and grandmother, George and Catherine Knott, had produced thirteen children over a large number of years. A key feature in the history of this family group was George’s move from the South Foreland lighthouse at Dover to the Smeaton Eddystone in 1861. It created a second focus for the family in the southwest of England after a long history of lighthouse keeping at South Foreland that up to that point had spanned 130 years. My own branch of the family thus grew up in Devon, knowing very little about the large residue of family that still remained in Kent. After his appointment to the Eddystone, off the south Devon coast, George and Catherine moved to Braunton in north Devon, where they lived for many years in the wonderful Bideford lighthouse that was situated amongst the sand dunes several miles to the south of Braunton has been long since destroyed. There they continued to raise their large family. My great-grandfather, Frederick Warner Knott was born into this environment, grew up, married Helen Hill, the daughter of a master armourer in Devonport Dockyard, and brought up his own family in Braunton, of which my grandfather, Frederick Roland Knott (Rowley) was the eldest of five children. Then, when a new lighthouse was opened at nearby Bull Point in 1890, George took up an appointment there as Principal Keeper, with Catherine unofficially fulfilling the role of Assistant Keeper, a rare and forgotten example of how women acted as lighthouse keepers but received no recognition for their work. The direct connection with lighthouse keeping in my immediate family thus came to an end when eventually, Frederick Warner and his wife, Helen, moved to Plymouth in the early 1900s. George and Catherine moved back to Kent where George took up his final appointment at North Foreland lighthouse until his retirement in 1904. Walter, a younger brother of Frederick Warner, remained in the Barnstaple area and his own son, also called Fred, was to become a good friend to me in the 1970s when I was trying to unravel much of this important family history.

George Knott with his wonderful model of the Smeaton lighthouse when he served in it on the Eddystone from 1861-65. The model is still conserved within the National Maritime Museum.

The Lizard

Ken Trethewey — Wed, 13 May 2026 05:19:28 GMT

Another of those early sparks occurred when, at some time in the 1950s, I visited the lighthouse on the Lizard, the strangely named peninsula in west Cornwall that presented the most southerly point of the British Isles to the English Channel. From Plymouth, the distance of eighty-odd miles each way by car formed an adventurous family day out for a small boy when car ownership was still a luxury. Even now, the thought of travelling west along empty sunny Cornish roads, enveloped by the smell of warm pasties that mother had cooked for lunch, fills me with great pleasure. This may have been my first lighthouse experience – I don’t remember. It was the first time I had met the intriguing men who actually lived in lighthouses, and, when prompted, they told stories that would make your hair curl. Sadly, there are no photographs to record these memorable days. It was certainly the first time I saw the inside of a modern lantern with its fabulous optic and light source. For many years, this landfall light was the brightest in the management of Trinity House with an extraordinary power of 2 million candles. I remember a time in the early 1970s when I was at a party at Heybrook Bay, some sixty miles away from the Lizard. I was able to identify the light signal (known as the characteristic) from the Lizard lighthouse by counting the flashes, even though it was well beyond the horizon. It was so bright that on a clear night I could still see the glare from the beams as they lit up the sky.

A visit to a Trinity House lighthouse was the same, wherever you went. Of course, the locations were all spectacularly different, and the architecture of the lighthouse itself varied, but the same basic ingredients were always present. The station buildings were painted green, white and black. All walls were white and seemed dazzling in the bright sunshine; the green was used on all woodwork and cast iron guttering and down-pipes. Black was for chimneys and other features. Roofs were of slate, the tower, a couple of cottages, a fog signal house built in a layout that the site allowed, and all swept squeaky clean and enclosed by a whitewashed perimeter wall. The management expected a high standard of repair, cleanliness and functionality and this was enforced by regular navy-style visits of inspection by the senior Trinity House staff, quaintly named Elder Brethren. The provision of gardens for the families to grow basic foodstuffs often increased the overall size of the plot. In times of old, some animals would have been kept, depending upon the station, but I never saw anything of this era. From the 60s onwards, garages were built to allow keepers to have their own cars. Families were no longer prepared to walk the lengthy distances to schools and local amenities. Washing was often hanging on the line to dry and although it was clear that the cottages were inhabited, the keepers and their families usually kept out of view until the tourists were gone.

A single-track mettle road generally approached the station and a visitor would eventually arrive at the entrance gates where a Trinity House sign would tersely inform him of the terms and conditions of his presence. The opening of a lighthouse to visitors was always at the discretion of the Principal Keeper and a lighthouse was always closed when the fog signal was in operation because the keeper was considered to be on duty and unavailable for hosting visitors. In those days, however, the keepers were usually glad to welcome visitors during the afternoon watch from about 2 p.m. onwards when the chores of the day were done. Besides, the strategically positioned cap placed by the door on the way out was a good source of tips to supplement their dreadfully low wages.

Visitors would mill around in the courtyard close to the entrance to the tower until the keeper was finished with the previous group. Though it was spontaneous, I always got the feeling that the keepers were following a script that they had practised and been trained to deliver. The ‘tour’ was almost always confined to the tower where visitors received a brief explanation of how the lighthouse worked, as well as its history and the dangers to navigation that were being guarded against. There was a look at the various bits of equipment, and a climb into the lantern to see the optic and admire the view. The keeper would always explain how the optic weighed more than a ton but floated in a bath of mercury, and that it could be set rotating by the gentle push of a finger.

For the first fifteen years or so of my life, the seed of a love of lighthouses lay dormant inside me until sometime in the mid-1960s. Then, one day, Grandfather told me that I was “related to Grace Darling.” I was supposed to be impressed, but instead I was puzzled, for I did not then know about the fantastic story of heroism that had wowed generations of people before me. Grace was a weak and gentle girl who became a nineteenth century English heroine by saving the lives of a number of survivors of a shipwreck. With her lighthouse keeper father, she had rowed in appalling conditions to the rock on which the wretched people clung for dear life.

Grandfather – his name was Frederick Roland Knott, though many of his relations knew him as Rowley - went on to explain that he was confident about the relationship because my ancestors had been lighthouse keepers at Dover, at the Eddystone and in North Devon. There was an obvious link, but he had no idea of the nature of the relationship to the Darling family, then resident on the Longstone lighthouse. This was to be the start of a lifelong interest in lighthouses, as first I tried to find out details of my family history, and then became even more interested in the lighthouses where they were presumed to have lived and worked.

During the period from about 1965 to 1968, there were occasional family discussions about what Grandfather had said. Close relatives would scratch their heads for any dim memories that might shed light on the mystery. My relatives started to associate me with lighthouses and began to give me things. One of the first was a splendid set of 50 WD and HO Wills Cigarette Cards. The set of lighthouses was published during the 1930s, the front of each card bearing a delightful picture, and the back a potted history that formed an excellent starting point for my search for information. I quickly focused on finding out about the lighthouses themselves, rather than on my family history, although I continued to pursue both. I borrowed books from the library and copied information about specific lighthouses by hand, only occasionally undertaking the task of typing it on an ancient, unreliable typewriter – an arduous task in those days. I also made an early approach to Trinity House and was sent a few miserable information sheets that were little better than those I had prepared myself.

Many years later my dear wife Chris and I were able to spend time in one of the keepers’ cottages. The experience of being at the Lizard by night was very special, as the photos show.

Lighthouses: The Spark Of An Interest

Ken Trethewey — Wed, 13 May 2026 05:01:47 GMT

I feel that I have always loved lighthouses, and I think people know me more for that than anything else. That’s fine by me. My interest has been on fire since I was 15, although there were sparks in the tinderbox for years before that. I do not clearly remember the first time I actually set foot inside a lighthouse, but, because of where I was born and brought up, I feel instinctively attracted to the Eddystone more than any other lighthouse. For those readers not familiar with the geography, I should explain. Plymouth is a seaport in the far southwest of England and has been a base (specifically called Devonport) for the Royal Navy since the 17th century. Beautiful grassy slopes known as the Hoe overlook Plymouth’s grand, natural harbour, Plymouth Sound. The Hoe is that famous but oddly named place where, in 1588, Drake announced that the defence of England from the invading Spanish Armada could wait until after he had finished his game of bowls. In the nineteenth century, the harbour was greatly improved by the construction of a two-mile long breakwater across the entrance.

The two fingers of land that enclose Plymouth Sound are those of Wembury in the east and Rame Head in the west. The Eddystone Rocks lie about ten miles south of Rame Head and about 14 miles south of the Hoe. It was here in 1698 that the world’s first rock lighthouse was built by Henry Winstanley (he built a second, stronger tower a year later) giving rise to one of the great lighthouse stories of all time. [Ken Trethewey: The Keepers (2011 edition)] Rudyerd built a third tower in 1708, only for it to be destroyed by fire in 1755. Smeaton’s Tower, the fourth of five structures, became the most famous from the time of its completion in 1759, and when it was due for replacement in 1878, the people of Plymouth refused to allow its destruction. They found the finance to have it removed from the reef and rebuilt in 1884 in the grand position in the centre of the Hoe where it stands today. The fifth and present Eddystone lighthouse was finished under the direction of Sir James Douglass in 1882. Automatic and deserted, it stands there today, an unvisited shrine to silicon chips and solar power.

Although they have all heard of the Eddystone lighthouse, very few of the inhabitants of South Devon and Cornwall are well acquainted with the lighthouse, except as a familiar distant shape on the horizon. In the early part of this century pleasure craft frequently took sightseers on tours around the lighthouse, but this ceased during the War and the trips were never re-commenced. Even the familiar picture postcards for visitors to send back home to friends and relatives dropped from view on the news stands. Today, only fishermen, seeking the spoils that frequently accompany the wrecks and reefs of the English Channel, visit the Eddystone Rocks. Many keep them at a safe distance, as do passing yachtsmen, rightfully fearing their treacherous waters. Only those with accurate charts dare approach close enough to experience the awe and mystique of the atmosphere surrounding the tower.

The shape which uniquely identifies the Eddystone lighthouse is caused by the remains of the old Smeaton Tower on another part of the reef to the west of the more modern lighthouse. Rather than allow Trinity House to destroy their beloved Smeaton Tower, the people of Plymouth raised sufficient funds to have it dismantled and re-erected on the grassy slopes of Plymouth Hoe, where it stands today. However, Smeaton had never intended his tower to be removed and the task of dismantling the solid base proved too much. It was therefore left behind and a new base made for the upper parts to stand on.

As a small boy, I used to visit Smeaton’s Tower, now the most well known landmark in Plymouth; indeed, its image has become the unofficial logo for Plymouth. Climbing up the inside of the lighthouse was great fun. Upon passing through the small entrance door, you immediately came upon the curved cold stone stairway - echoes of your own footsteps as you climbed the tower, and a slight feeling of giddiness as you went round and round, trying not to trip up on the steps, worn down from the tread of countless feet. Coming out onto the stone floor of the lowest room, you were faced with a short series of steep wooden ladders that passed from one floor to the next through a hole in the centre of each floor. The floor above your head just seemed to hang there. I was never able to understand what held those stone floors up.

You frequently had to wait impatiently for someone to come down the ladder before you could climb up. I remember a man in uniform (a council employee, not a keeper) sitting in the kitchen and taking money in exchange for a ticket. The tower was mostly empty, except for a few pieces of forlorn-looking wooden furniture. It really did not look like the sort of place where men lived. There were some old pictures on the wall and a really old book in a fragile glass case. The book was written by Smeaton himself and described how he had built the lighthouse. (Later, I’ll relate the story of how I came to acquire a copy of my own.) In the lantern room there was nothing except a crude metal chandelier dangling from the roof. Presumably, this was what the candles were held in? It all seemed very crude. You could see nothing outside until you climbed a couple of rungs of a metal ladder and onto a narrow, raised walkway that ran around the inside of the lantern itself. This allowed you to look through the square panes of glass at the marvellous view outside. Alternatively you could squeeze through a small metal door leading onto the balcony outside. Your clothes would be flapping in the strong wind and your hair all over the place as you leaned over the railing to look at the people-ants scuttling about on the grass some seventy feet (22 m) below.

The story of the Eddystone lighthouse should be an essential part of a Plymouth child’s education. On visits to the Hoe, the views were always dominated by the Breakwater, a great stone structure that stretches for a couple of miles across the width of Plymouth Sound and provides shelter for ships seeking relief from gale-swept seas. On the western (right-hand) end, stood another lighthouse that, despite looking perfectly fine and lighthouse-shaped, always seemed second-best to the awesome Eddystone. My parents would tell me to look to the horizon for the Eddystone lighthouse, and I remember sometimes using the coin-operated telescopes mounted along the foreshore so to do. Of course, if the weather was less than perfect and visibility was poor – which often seemed to be the case - I would see nothing, and would settle for a look at the Breakwater lighthouse instead. On the occasions when I was able to see the Eddystone lighthouse, especially without the aid of a telescope, it was a great excitement.

Then, when I visited my Knott grandparents’ seaside chalet at Whitsand Bay, Cornwall, it was possible to view the Eddystone lighthouse through grandad’s binoculars. The chalet was about four miles closer than the Hoe so it was easier and more exciting, since more detail of the fantastic structure could be seen. Did men actually live out there? Apparently so. In this era, it was common to hear about delays in the delivery of Christmas fare to the keepers of the Eddystone, for the exercise was fraught with difficulty, and frequently could not be completed due to bad weather. Thus it was that the people of the southwest of England were regularly given news of the welfare of the region’s lighthouse keepers (for similar events also occurred at the Wolf Rock and the Bishop Rock lighthouses) and the strange, isolated life of the lighthouse keeper was portrayed regularly on TV and in the newspapers. The romance and excitement of lighthouses and their keepers thus became a firm part of my culture in those times, in the same way as the other things that were part of our regional way of life: the Navy, and a love of Dartmoor being amongst the more prominent. Both were to become important to me. A number of my family served in the Navy, my grandfather, Fred Knott, and my uncle and cousin in particular. I was to do the same, although I had no intention of it; only when I finally left University did I make that decision. Other members of my family worked in Devonport Dockyard, most notably my paternal grandfather, father and brother, so in my early life there was a subconscious but strong attraction to the Navy, the sea, and also to engineering.

Further reading:

The complete story of the Smeaton lighthouse is to be found in my book, The Lighthouses of Cornwall and Devon.

But never forget to visit my Pharology website.

Ken’s Substack

The Last Light Keepers

Further Reading

Of the media, and Arthur Lane, and Me

Further Reading

A Lighthouse Brief

Further Reading

To The Top Of A Lighthouse

The tallest twenty lighthouses in Britain and France (heights in metres)

Some Other Tallest Lighthouses

Further Reading

The King of Lighthouses

The Grave Situation

Further Reading:

Lighthouse Visits in France

A Race at the Race

Lighthouse Postcards

The Origin of the Postcard

The Art of Communication

The Most Popular Postcards

The Rare Cards

Further Reading

Lundy Old Lighthouse

Further Reading:

Avonmouth

The World's Most Famous Lighthouse Photograph

Bull Point

Hartland Point

Lighthouse Family

Further Reading

The Lizard

Further reading

Lighthouses: The Spark Of An Interest