Lighthouses

‘The good old Abbot of Aberbrothock Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock; On a buoy, in the storm, it floated and swung, And over the waves its warning rung.

Now, some time before the monastic dissolution, there had been founded in Deptford Church a guild or fraternity of sailors who undertook to watch over the interests of all conce...

So much for the general history of coast lighting. The reader will now wish to hear something about the luminants used of old, and of the improvements that have been made in the...

With the exception of the lights at the head of Berwick pier, those on the Farne Islands, on the Northumbrian coast, off Bamborough, are the most northerly in England. Legend te...

Passing southwards from the Farne, the next lighthouse of which there is anything like ancient mention is Tynemouth; probably the monks at this important northern offshoot from...

Leaving the Humber, and coming southwards to the mouth of the Thames, we pass some of the earliest post-Reformation lighthouses erected—Winterton, where we have seen a light was...

Coming southwards from Harwich, we are soon at the mouth of the great water-way to London and in view of the Nore light. This is the first lightship of which we have had occasio...

Four miles seawards from Deal lie the Goodwin Sands, and the deep water between the two is known as the Downs—the great historic resting-place for ships, naval and mercantile, t...

After passing the Goodwins the pilot of the southward-bound ship can sail on with little to trouble him till he gets near Dungeness. That was a very ‘nasty’ spot till marked by...

There is not much to say about the lighthouses along our southern coast between Dungeness and St. Catherine’s, in the Isle of Wight; but the lighthouse at this latter place has...

Though comparatively modern, the history of the lighting of the Eddystone rocks, if we begin it with the _suggestions_ for such a laudable scheme, commences a good deal earlier...

Winstanley tells us that work was commenced in 1696. Government so far smiled upon the undertaking that the guardship Terrible was appointed to accompany both Winstanley and his...

It was unlikely that the Eddystone lighthouse, which in the few years of its existence had proved so beneficial to navigation, would be allowed to remain for long unrestored, mo...

The destruction of the second lighthouse at the Eddystone could not have happened at a more unfortunate time, for the long dark nights of the next few months were the worst in t...

Now let us pass on to the Lizard Point, where the massive whitened lighthouse with its four towers is quite one of the features of the Cornish coast. This excellently ordered bu...

Soon after a lighthouse had been built at the Lizard, the dangers of the Wolf Rock, that lies between that point and the Land’s End attracted the attention of the Trinity House....

The Scillies were the home of at least one religious fraternity in pre-Reformation days; and surely, when we consider the situation of these islands, we may accept it as probabl...

After turning the south-west corner of England we find few existing lighthouses with anything like respectable antiquity; indeed, the voyager along our western shores of a centu...