Flamborough Head Lighthouse is an active lighthouse located at
Flamborough
Flamborough is a village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated approximately north-east of Bridlington town centre on the prominent coastal feature of Flamborough Head.
The most prominent man-made feature o ...
,
East Riding of Yorkshire
The East Riding of Yorkshire, or simply East Riding or East Yorkshire, is a ceremonial county and unitary authority area in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and west, South Yorkshire to t ...
.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
.
Flamborough Head Lighthouse acts as a waypoint for passing deep sea vessels and coastal traffic, and marks
Flamborough Head
Flamborough Head () is a promontory, long on the Yorkshire coast of England, between the Filey and Bridlington bays of the North Sea. It is a chalk headland, with sheer white cliffs. The cliff top has two standing lighthouse towers, the olde ...
for vessels heading towards
Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to:
People
* Scarborough (surname)
* Earl of Scarbrough
Places Australia
* Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth
* Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong
* Scarborough, Queensland, su ...
and
Bridlington
Bridlington is a coastal town and a civil parish on the Holderness Coast of the North Sea in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is about north of Hull and east of York. The Gypsey Race enters the North Sea at its harbour. The 2011 Cen ...
.
Old lighthouse
The first lighthouse, built by Sir John Clayton, was completed in 1674 and is one of the oldest surviving complete lighthouses in England. Built from chalk, it was never lit. This is now a
Grade II* listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
.
Current lighthouse
![(Flamborough, lighthouse, Yorkshire, England) (LOC) (16616663219)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/%28Flamborough%2C_lighthouse%2C_Yorkshire%2C_England%29_%28LOC%29_%2816616663219%29.jpg)
The present lighthouse, designed by Samuel Wyatt and costing £8,000 to build, was first lit on 1 December 1806. It had a distinctive
light characteristic
A light characteristic is all of the properties that make a particular navigational light identifiable. Graphical and textual descriptions of navigational light sequences and colours are displayed on nautical charts and in Light Lists with the cha ...
of two white flashes followed by a red flash. This was provided by the lighting apparatus, which was designed by optics specialist George Robinson, who was also Chief Inspector of Lighthouses at Trinity House.
It consisted of a revolving vertical shaft with a three-sided frame on which were mounted 21
argand lamp
The Argand lamp is a type of oil lamp invented in 1780 by Aimé Argand. Its output is 6 to 10 candelas, brighter than that of earlier lamps. Its more complete combustion of the candle wick and oil than in other lamps required much less frequent ...
s, 7 on each side, with
parabolic reflectors
A parabolic (or paraboloid or paraboloidal) reflector (or dish or mirror) is a reflective surface used to collect or project energy such as light, sound, or radio waves. Its shape is part of a circular paraboloid, that is, the surface generated ...
. On one of the three sides the reflectors were covered with red glass: this was the first use of red glass in a lighthouse and represented the first use of the colour as part of a light characteristic;
the idea was soon taken up elsewhere. According to a description of the lighthouse written in 1818, the red light was used to distinguish Flamborough's lighthouse from the one at
Cromer
Cromer ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish on the north coast of the English county of Norfolk. It is north of Norwich, north-northeast of London and east of Sheringham on the North Sea coastline.
The local government authorities are Nor ...
. A Victorian
pilot
An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...
book used the
mnemonic
A mnemonic ( ) device, or memory device, is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval (remembering) in the human memory for better understanding.
Mnemonics make use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and imag ...
: 'Two whites to one red / Indicates Flambro' Head'.
In 1872, a new
paraffin Paraffin may refer to:
Substances
* Paraffin wax, a white or colorless soft solid that is used as a lubricant and for other applications
* Liquid paraffin (drug), a very highly refined mineral oil used in cosmetics and for medical purposes
* Alkane ...
lamp was installed to the design of
James Douglass.
Flamborough was the first Trinity House lighthouse to use paraffin, which had only lately been introduced as a lighthouse illuminant; afterwards, the Corporation upgraded all its oil burners to paraffin.
Along with the new lamp, a new
first-order
In mathematics and other formal sciences, first-order or first order most often means either:
* "linear" (a polynomial of degree at most one), as in first-order approximation and other calculus uses, where it is contrasted with "polynomials of high ...
dioptric
Dioptrics is the branch of optics dealing with refraction, similarly the branch dealing with mirror
A mirror or looking glass is an object that Reflection (physics), reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror will show an image of ...
optic was installed, by
Chance Brothers
Chance Brothers and Company was a glassworks originally based in Spon Lane, Smethwick, West Midlands (formerly in Staffordshire), in England. It was a leading glass manufacturer and a pioneer of British glassmaking technology.
The Chance fami ...
of
Smethwick
Smethwick () is an industrial town in Sandwell, West Midlands, England. It lies west of Birmingham city centre. Historically it was in Staffordshire.
In 2019, the ward of Smethwick had an estimated population of 15,246, while the wider bu ...
,
The revolving optic was designed to maintain the lighthouse's characteristic of two white flashes followed by one red flash; the speed of revolution was changed, however, from a flash every two minutes to a flash every 30 seconds. Driven by clockwork, the optic was described at the time as 'a circular frame of six faces, composed of great glass prisms,
..the third and sixth faces having sheets of
ruby glass before them to give the red effect to the light'.
These red-flashing lenses were made more than double the width of the clear white-flashing panels, to compensate for the reduced intensity caused by the ruby filters; with a width in
azimuth
An azimuth (; from ar, اَلسُّمُوت, as-sumūt, the directions) is an angular measurement in a spherical coordinate system. More specifically, it is the horizontal angle from a cardinal direction, most commonly north.
Mathematicall ...
of 69.5°, they were at the time the widest lens panels yet constructed.
The alterations cost £7,000 and provided a range of .
In 1907 the speed of rotation was increased, so as to give a flash every fifteen seconds.
In 1925 the lantern was made taller, to accommodate a new 15-foot lens.
The lens is a large (first-order) revolving
catadioptric
A catadioptric optical system is one where refraction and reflection are combined in an optical system, usually via lenses (dioptrics) and curved mirrors (catoptrics). Catadioptric combinations are used in focusing systems such as searchlights, he ...
optic
Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultraviole ...
made up of four asymmetrical panels; it displays four white flashes every fifteen seconds. (After the new lens was installed, the old apparatus was transferred to
the Bahamas
The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...
to be used as part of a programme of improvements to the lighthouses there.) The light was converted from oil to electricity in 1940.
Following automation, the last lighthouse keepers left on 8 May 1996.
The light remains in use.
East Riding of Yorkshire Council
East Riding of Yorkshire Council is the local authority of the East Riding of Yorkshire. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. It provides a full range of local government serv ...
, under licence from
Trinity House
"Three In One"
, formation =
, founding_location = Deptford, London, England
, status = Royal Charter corporation and registered charity
, purpose = Maintenance of lighthouses, buoys and beacons
, he ...
, operate tours of the lighthouse seasonally.
It is now a
Grade II listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
.
In 2022 the lighthouse was once again modernised: the revolving Fresnel optic was removed; it and the emergency light have been replaced by a pair of static LED lanterns. As part of the modernisation programme the visible range of the light was reduced from to .
Fog signal station
![Flamborough head Fog signal station](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Flamborough_head_Fog_signal_station.jpg)
In 1859 a
fog signal station A fog signal station is a station at which a fog signal exists, but at which there is no lighthouse. A light tower might be appended to the station at a later date, as happened at The Cuckolds Light in Maine. A number of these stations were con ...
was built (at some distance from the lighthouse, close to the cliff edge). Initially an 18-pound gun was used as the
fog signal
A foghorn or fog signal is a device that uses sound to warn vehicles of navigational hazards such as rocky coastlines, or boats of the presence of other vessels, in foggy conditions. The term is most often used in relation to marine transport. W ...
, sounded once every fifteen minutes.
A cottage was built within the compound as accommodation for the gunners.
In 1878, explosive rockets replaced the cannon, discharged every 10 minutes in foggy weather (every five minutes from 1896) and reaching an altitude of .
In 1908 an engine house was built next to the cottage and a fog
siren
Siren or sirens may refer to:
Common meanings
* Siren (alarm), a loud acoustic alarm used to alert people to emergencies
* Siren (mythology), an enchanting but dangerous monster in Greek mythology
Places
* Siren (town), Wisconsin
* Siren, Wisc ...
replaced the rockets; it sounded one long and one short blast, every 90 seconds, through a pair of (
Rayleigh trumpets mounted on the engine room roof. Compressed air for the siren was provided by a pair of 22 hp
Hornsby oil engines linked to a single-cylinder Hornsby
compressor
A compressor is a mechanical device that increases the pressure of a gas by reducing its volume. An air compressor is a specific type of gas compressor.
Compressors are similar to pumps: both increase the pressure on a fluid and both can transp ...
.
In 1924 the siren was replaced by a pair of
diaphone
The diaphone is a noisemaking device best known for its use as a foghorn: It can produce deep, powerful tones, able to carry a long distance. Although they have fallen out of favor, diaphones were also used at some fire stations and in other situ ...
s, mounted in a metal turret on top of a porch added to the front of the engine house. This was itself superseded by an electric fog signal in 1975. In 2022 the signal was altered from two blasts to one long blast, every 90 seconds.
The fog signal compound remains in Trinity House ownership; along with the modern fog signal apparatus, it has since 1998 accommodated a
Differential Global Positioning System
Differential Global Positioning Systems (DGPSs) supplement and enhance the positional data available from global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs). A DGPS for GPS can increase accuracy by about a thousandfold, from approximately to .
DGPSs c ...
(DGPS) signal station.
See also
*
List of lighthouses in England
This is a list of lighthouses in England. It includes lighthouses which are no longer in use as a light but are still standing. It also includes some of the harbour and pier-head lights around the country.
Details of several lighthouses and li ...
References
External links
Trinity HousePathé News footage of the lighthouse in 1933
{{Authority control
Lighthouses completed in 1806
Towers completed in 1806
Lighthouses in the East Riding of Yorkshire
Lighthouse museums in England
Museums in the East Riding of Yorkshire
Grade II listed buildings in the East Riding of Yorkshire
Grade II listed lighthouses
Flamborough