SIGNPOSTS OF THE SEA
Christopher Nicholson reflects on England’s lighthouses: their individual characteristics, how they have changed, and the keepers who used to look after them.
I’VE been fascinated by lighthouses since my schooldays in Derbyshire – about as far from a lighthouse as it’s possible to get in England! A field trip to the Hebrides introduced me to my first “rock” light from a beach on the corner of a windy island. I wanted to know how it was possible to build such a structure 100 years ago on such a wild piece of rock – and for it still to be standing. I was hooked, and ever since I’ve written about, photographed and visited great numbers of them around our coasts – the rock lights with the help of a helicopter!
All British lighthouses (that used to have keepers) are divided into two categories. Shore stations are located somewhere on the coast – down a narrow track on a rocky headland, at the entrance to an estuary, or even in a seaside town. Some are quite prominent and well-known: Portland Bill in Dorset, Trevose Head in Cornwall, Southwold in Suffolk, Flamborough Head in Yorkshire, St Bees Head in Cumbria, Happisburgh in Norfolk, St Mary’s in Tyne and Wear and Start Point in Devon, for instance. They are all popular landmarks on various coastal footpaths, and several of them are open for visitors in the summer.
But rock stations are the ones that really capture people’s imaginations – on a wild, wave-swept reef miles out to sea, or a lonely uninhabited island. Eddystone – regarded as the world’s most famous lighthouse,
Rock in the Scilly Isles, Wolf Rock and Longships (only eight miles apart off the Cornish coast), the Needles off the Isle of Wight and Longstone Lighthouse in the Farne Islands, the home of Grace Darling, are probably the best-known English rock lighthouses. Another significant rock light is Beachy Head beneath the chalk cliffs of Sussex, which looks as though it might be possible to walk to at very low tides – but don’t try it!
The design of a lighthouse depends upon its location and the person that built it. English lighthouse builders were James Walker, and Nicholas, William and James Douglass, who built some of our finest lighthouses between about 1830 and 1890.
Every lighthouse is unique. Though they may look similar, they won’t be. The towers will be different heights, maybe a different colour, or the arrangement of the living accommodation will vary. Their colour can vary from none at all to white – sometimes with red or black bands to make the lighthouse a conspicuous “daymark”. At night they identify themselves by the characteristic of the flashes: anything from a single flash to multiples of flashes every few seconds, its colour – white, red or green – and how far its flash reaches.
Their individual characteristics give each lighthouse a unique identity and that’s part of the reason we find them so fascinating, not forgetting they were built to save lives and steer mariners away from danger. They’ve also long been a favourite location in which fiction writers could set a mystery plot. Virginia Woolf is said to have based To The Lighthouse on Godrevy Light in Cornwall.
Of course, technology has changed the way lighthouses operate over the years. All English lighthouses now function automatically and there is no such thing as a lighthouse keeper any more – computers, solar panels and communication by Wi-Fi and highspeed fibre optics have seen to that. The last keepers left the last manned English lighthouse at North Foreland, Kent, in 1998.
The source of their light has kept pace with the technology of the era, too. Coal-fired beacons on a crude stone tower gave way to candles, then oil-burning lamps in front of polished mirrors. These were followed by vaporised paraffin lamps with mantles inside a lantern of revolving glass prisms, powered by clockwork. Eventually diesel generators could produce electricity and the light source became a huge bulb. Today’s cutting-edge technology has meant it’s possible to remove the circular glass lens and the flash comes from a LED “bulb” powered by energy from solar panels, that is switched on and off to mimic the lighthouses’ original flash.
I was lucky to visit many lighthouses while they still had keepers, and to talk to some of the dedicated, and often anonymous, men who carried out their unceasing vigil all their lives. They were a special breed, usually modest and unassuming, who rarely talked about their work unless asked, and would then tell frightening tales of storm and tempest while locked inside a granite tower.
One particular keeper I came across at several lighthouses as he moved from one to another was the late Eddie Matthews, a Cornishman born on the Lizard peninsula where he returned as the Principal Keeper of Lizard
Lighthouse before its automation. He was very proud to show me around his different lighthouses and we got on well. Why did he want to become a lighthouse keeper, I once asked him.
“I liked the slow pace and solitude of it. It’s a way of life and something I always wanted to do,” he said. “Being able to organise my day without someone looking over my shoulder.”
One of his postings was to Longships Lighthouse at Land’s End – a station notorious for the huge waves it experiences. “When I was off duty, I often liked to sit in the lantern and look out across open sea to the horizon over 20 miles away. And when there’s a storm with 100 mph gusts we often had water up to the lantern and the tower would shake.”
We were talking on the lantern gallery of the Lizard Lighthouse – the most southerly light on the English mainland. Yachts passed close to the rocks below us and merchant ships gave us a wider berth. “We are a maritime nation and the keepers are part – the eyes – of a maritime support system. If anything happens out at sea near to a lighthouse, we’ll spot it.”
Now those eyes have gone and we are left with a relatively foolproof – but automatic – system for the competent mariner. Even though most pleasure craft and sea-going vessels have their own maritime satnav, the reassuring flash of a lighthouse just adds an extra margin of comfort.
However, a visit to an English lighthouse is still possible at certain times of the year. Trinity House (England’s lighthouse authority) have eight stations that open to the public for guided tours, often given by retired keepers, to see the inside of a working lighthouse. Most will end in the lantern room where, if you’re lucky, the massive glass prisms will still be present, rotating around a comparatively tiny lamp or LED.
If you find a lighthouse or heritage centre that’s open on your travels, don’t hesitate to visit. If your legs can take the flights of spiral staircases up the tower not only will you get a spectacular panoramic view, but also a glimpse of our maritime history and an experience you’ll never forget.