Lighthouses of Australia Inc. Bulletin

Rock Lighthouses of Britain
Photo: © Christopher Nicholson

Review by Kristie Eggleston, LoA Webmaster
All photographs are copyright and must not be reproduced. Photos provided courtesy Christopher Nicholson.

Picture the scene.... the lighthouse keepers are huddled in the sitting room near the top of the lighthouse. The sky is pitch-black, and the wind is howling around the tower. The sound of the waves crashing against the tower is tremendous, and the spray is lashing against the glass of the lantern room, whilst the tower shudders with each wave washing up against it. The lighthouse is perched on a small rock, surrounded by jagged edges of reef and white water, and the keepers are all alone.

Dramatic view of the original Eddystone Lighthouse stump and its successor
The storm damage to the top of the stump is especially noticeable in this view, as is the ring of new solar panels around the outside of the lantern.
Photo: © Dan Bolt

This dramatic scenario is one that idealises the romantic, lonely and dangerous existence of lighthouse keepers, popularised in lighthouse novels and books around the world. Who hasn't wondered what it would be like to live inside a lighthouse tower, one that is surrounded by the sea, where the waves can be tall enough to sweep over the top of the tower, and where the only access is by almost impossible landing by boat, or dropping in by helicopter from above. What would it be like to live in a tower where the rooms are all curved inside, and there is no getting away from your fellow keepers should you need solitude?

Smeaton's Eddystone tower, painted in its original colours, was relocated to Plymouth, looking out towards the reef on which it used to stand
Photo: © Christopher Nicholson

This picture of life inside a lighthouse was not common for Australian lightkeepers (prior to their demanning). In its lighthouse history, Australia has had very few manned offshore lighthouses, and none that I can think of that were located on a small wave-washed rock in the middle of the ocean. Perhaps it is a reflection of our geography and geology, politics or history that Australia has no lighthouses of this type, but the life of the British offshore rock lighthouse, so dramatically demonstrated in the Bell Rock Lighthouse episode of the BBC's "Seven Wonders of the Industrial World", is one that epitomises the romantic notion of lighthouse keeping.

Rock Lighthouses of Britain by Christopher Nicholson delves into the history of these amazing lighthouses - the construction methods, the various types of illumination, power sources, automation and keepers' lives. The book focuses on some of the world's most famous lighthouses - Bell Rock, Eddystone and Skerryvore, and is beautifully illustrated with magnificent colour photographs, original architectural plans and historical photographs and drawings. The author himself took many of the photographs - dramatic scenes of modern maintenance crews landing by helicopter, and long distance aerial shots of the remote locations of these lighthouses.

Smalls Reef Lighthouse, which operates continuously – even during bright sunshine – after its automation in 1987
Photo: © Christopher Nicholson

This third edition begins with a map of the rock lighthouses discussed, which shows the remote locations of each light, with the most distant, Rockall, located around 235 miles from the nearest land!

The three keepers of the Longships Lighthouse anxiously watch the approach of the Trinity House helicopter in 1982
Photo: © Christopher Nicholson

Chapter 1 covers the history of the British lighthouse service - the administration of all English, Welsh and Scottish lights, beacons & buoys is managed by two organisations – the Corporation of Trinity House and the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses. Trinity House's beginnings date from the Middle Ages – charitable seaman's guilds which supported retired seaman, their widows and orphans, and provided pilots and recommended suitable sites for beacons in their area. The Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses, more commonly known as the Northern Lighthouse Board, arose in the 1700s and is responsible for lights throughout Scotland.

Chapter 2 showcases what is probably the most famous lighthouse in the world – Eddystone. The reef on which the Eddystone Lighthouse was built has been the site of four lights – the first built in 1696 by Henry Winstanley, who was washed away with his lighthouse in the Great Storm of 1703. The second tower was built by John Rudyerd and lit in 1709. This tower lasted until 1755, before being burnt down in a fire. John Smeaton, a civil engineer, recommended that the replacement tower be built from granite rocks and be modelled on the tapering shape of an oak tree, to make sure that the structure was heavy enough to resist the waves, and strong enough to prevent it vibrating during storms. Smeaton's design was to change the whole science of pharology for years to come. The third tower was lit in 1759, and remained in use until 1877, when it was discovered that the rocks upon which it stood were becoming eroded with each wave. The lighthouse was dismantled and rebuilt on the mainland at Plymouth as a memorial.

View of the Bell Rock Lighthouse lantern from an NLB helicopter, showing the weather vane and other weather instruments on the dome
Photo: © Christopher Nicholson

The fourth lighthouse was designed by James Douglass and was first lit in 1882. Construction took place on a different section of the ridge of rock from Smeaton's tower – a section which remains submerged at high tide, requiring a huge cofferdam to be built for the foundations. This lighthouse is still in use, and was automated in 1981. A helipad was built above the lantern to allow easier access for maintenance crews, and in 1999/2000, £350,000 was spent on refurbishing the light to allow it to run using solar power.

Original Trinity House plan for Bishop Rock Lighthouse, dated 29 November 1867, signed by James Douglass
Photo: © Trinity House

Chapter 15 is new to this edition, and discusses "the most isolated rock on the surface of the Earth". Rockall does not have a lighthouse in the accepted sense of the word – it doesn't have a tower with internal accommodation and a lantern on top like Eddystone, nor keeper's dwellings adjacent to a tower like The Skerries or Muckle Flugga. It has only had a light for around 30 years – but it's main claim to fame is its sheer isolation – it has been described as "the most isolated rock on the surface of the Earth" and the beacon on its summit as the most isolated British lighthouse. Rockall is a small granite rock, 80-100ft wide, 72ft high, that sticks out of the North Atlantic so far to the west of the British Isles that it rarely features on any map.

A beacon was placed on Rockall in 1972, but with enormous waves up to 2½ times the height of the rock washing over it, the beacons did not tend to last very long. In 1997, Greenpeace activists occupied the rock for 48 days, to protest the continuing exploration for oil in the Atlantic. During their stay, they converted the beacon on Rockall to solar power, installing panels behind the small light. During a visit a year later, they replaced the beacon again – and it was reported to be still functioning six months later. In 2005, a visit by radio hams who "activated" the rock for the first time, indicated that the beacon on Rockall had met the same fate as its predecessors, and had been swept into oblivion.

Greenpeace installed a solar power beacon on Rockall in 1998, as part of their Atlantic Frontier campaign.
Photo: © John Cunningham

The final chapter of Rock Lighthouses of Britain talks about the new era of rock lights. There will never be another Eddystone, Bell Rock or Skerryvore built, nor a repeat of the days when men like the Stevensons, Douglass or Smeaton could make their reputation and fortune by designing and building lighthouses on exposed rock sites.

The Trinity House helicopter on top of Longships Lighthouse with its clam-shell doors open.
Two of the keepers are busy lowering supplies through the trapdoor to the lantern gallery below.
Photo: © Chris Nicholson

The rock lighthouses in this book mark a particular era in civil engineering achievement that has now passed, and modern rock lights are now the product of relatively anonymous engineers, built of modern materials to modern designs, with modern technology rendering lighthouse keeping redundant. New rock lighthouses are totally automatic in operation and functional in design – no longer is a new lighthouse considered a thing of grace and beauty. Even the old masonry towers have changed as part of their modernisation and automation, with the symmetry gone by the addition of a helideck above the lantern, shrouding the very beauty of the lighthouse lantern behind a latticework of steel.

The author laments that ..."a lighthouse without keepers becomes simply an impassive stone monument.... its very existence very quickly fades from the memory, particularly if its remoteness also places it out of sight. It was the keepers who related the stories of the lighthouse, tales which had been passed down from previous keepers, tales of shipwreck and storm, so that such stories were perpetuated and kept within memory - but only so long as the keepers remained within the tower. Now the day has come when there is no such person as a lighthouse keeper, I fear the lighthouses themselves may become just maritime curiosities to future generations...."

The lighthouse on Chicken Rock was built to replace two others on the Calf of Man which were frequently obscured by fog.
The lower of the two lights - now in disrepair since its abandonment in 1875 - is seen here, as a fast running tide sweeps past the light that replaced it.
Photo: © John Hellowell

Rock Lighthouses of Britain is a fabulous book. It is highly informative, giving an insight not only into the history and architecture of these amazing lighthouses, whose structure and location, and the lives experienced by their keepers, are so different to that in Australia, but, also an understanding of the ancient history of lighthouses – the need to light the coastline has been a necessity for centuries – and how this has developed into the pharology of today.

Rock Lighthouses of Britain is beautifully illustrated, and the author's passion for the subject is evident in his own photographs throughout the book – spectacular aerial photos taken from helicopters circling lantern rooms, and equally amazing photos from the helideck, showing the views of the sea from the perspective of modern day maintenance crews. Readers may find themselves mesmerised by the illustrations and photographs – I found that upon my first reading of the book, I skimmed it from cover-to-cover only looking at the photographs and captions.

Thank you to Chris Nicholson, Inbooks and Whittles Publishing for giving me the opportunity to review Rock Lighthouses of Britain.

Rock Lighthouses of Britain by Christopher Nicholson (2006). First edition 1983, second edition 1995, reprinted 1999, 2000
224 page, hard-cover book, ISBN 1-90444-527-6

Available directly from the Australian distributor Inbooks for $79.95. If you mention the Lighthouses of Australia Inc Bulletin, they will pay the $7.70 P&H charge. Inbooks – phone 02 9986 7082, fax 02 9986 7090, email orders@inbooks.com.au or Locked Bag 535, Frenchs Forest NSW 1640, Australia.