The Lizard Lighthouse is a
lighthouse at
Lizard Point, Cornwall
Lizard Point () in Cornwall is at the southern tip of the Lizard Peninsula. It is situated half-a-mile (800 m) south of Lizard village in the civil parish of Landewednack and about 11 miles (18 km) southeast of Helston.
Lizard Poi ...
, England, built to guide vessels passing through the
English Channel
The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...
. It was often the welcoming beacon to persons returning to England, where on a clear night, the reflected light could be seen away.
History
A light was first exhibited here in 1619,
built thanks to the efforts of Sir Christopher Dimaline but it was extinguished and the tower demolished in 1630 because of difficulties in raising funds for its operation and maintenance.
The current lighthouse, consisting of two towers with cottages between them, was built in 1751 by the landowner
Thomas Fonnereau
Thomas Fonnereau (27 October 1699, in London – 20 March 1779) was a British merchant and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1741 and 1779.
Fonnrereau was the eldest son of Claude Fonnereau, a wealthy Huguenot merchant who ...
; each tower was topped by a coal-fired brazier.
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 ...
took responsibility for the installation in 1771. In 1812 the coal burners on each tower were replaced with
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 and
reflectors.
In each tower a fixed arrangement of nineteen lamps and reflectors was installed. In 1873 the original lamps and reflectors were still in use.
That year, because of the number of wrecks still occurring around the Point, the decision was taken to upgrade the lights and provide a
fog signal.
Therefore, in 1874, the site was significantly changed by the building of an engine room to provide electric power, not only for the lights but also for 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 ...
. The engine room was equipped with three 10 hp
caloric engines by A & F Brown of New York,
driving six
Siemens dynamo-electric machines, which in turn powered an
arc lamp in each tower;
(caloric engines were used because there was no nearby source of fresh water for
steam power).
At the same time a pair of medium-sized (third-order) fixed
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, ...
optics
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, ultrav ...
were installed, one on each tower, designed by
John Hopkinson
John Hopkinson, FRS, (27 July 1849 – 27 August 1898) was a British physicist, electrical engineer, Fellow of the Royal Society and President of the IEE (now the IET) twice in 1890 and 1896. He invented the three-wire ( three-phase) system fo ...
of
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 fam ...
.
The siren was in use from January 1878; it sounded (one blast every five minutes)
through a horizontal horn which was installed on the roof of the engine house and could be moved depending on the prevailing wind direction.
The new electric lights were first lit on 29 March that same year. In 1885 the Siemens dynamos were replaced by a pair of more powerful
de Méritens magneto
A magneto is an electrical generator that uses permanent magnets to produce periodic pulses of alternating current. Unlike a dynamo, a magneto does not contain a commutator to produce direct current. It is categorized as a form of alternator, ...
-electric generators.
In 1903 there were further changes when a large four-panel rotating optic, manufactured by Chance Brothers, was installed in the eastern tower and both the lantern and light on the western tower were removed (it was announced that this 'new revolving light of very great power' would be 'visible at a distance of between 40 and 50 miles'). In 1908 a new pair of sirens were installed (sounding out to sea through twin 'trumpets' on the roof of the engine house) and a trio of
Hornsby oil engines replaced the caloric engines .
Soon afterwards an
underwater bell was set up two miles south of the Lizard, operated by an electric striker controlled from the lighthouse via a
submarine cable Submarine cable is any electrical cable that is laid on the seabed, although the term is often extended to encompass cables laid on the bottom of large freshwater bodies of water.
Examples include:
*Submarine communications cable
*Submarine power ...
.
A
carbon arc lamp
An arc lamp or arc light is a lamp that produces light by an electric arc (also called a voltaic arc).
The carbon arc light, which consists of an arc between carbon electrodes in air, invented by Humphry Davy in the first decade of the 1800s, ...
continued to provide the light source until it was superseded in 1926 by an electric
filament lamp, which enabled a reduction in the number of personnel at the lighthouse from five to three.
['Lighthouses' in ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'', 1961 edition, volume 14.] The new lighting system, designed and installed by the
General Electric Company, functioned automatically: a
lamp changer was provided which would switch to a reserve electric or emergency acetylene lamp in the event of a bulb or power failure; and an automatic winding device was fitted to the clockwork mechanism that rotated the lenses.
Transformer
A transformer is a passive component that transfers electrical energy from one electrical circuit to another circuit, or multiple circuits. A varying current in any coil of the transformer produces a varying magnetic flux in the transformer' ...
s were introduced in the engine room to allow the 40-year-old magnetos to remain in use, along with the Hornsby engines.
The engines and magneto generators continued in daily use until 1950, when the lighthouse was connected to
mains electricity
Mains electricity or utility power, power grid, domestic power, and wall power, or in some parts of Canada as hydro, is a general-purpose alternating-current (AC) electric power supply. It is the form of electrical power that is delivered to h ...
. In that year four
Gardner diesel engines were installed, three to run compressors for the fog signal, the other linked to a pair of generators for use in the event of a mains
power failure
A power outage (also called a powercut, a power out, a power failure, a power blackout, a power loss, or a blackout) is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user.
There are many causes of power failures in an electricity ...
.
In March 1954 the lighthouse keeper and assistants were able to put out a fire that was started in the exhaust pits of the engines providing the electric power. The clockwork drive, used to rotate the optic, was replaced with an electric motor in 1972.
In 1998, Lizard Lighthouse was automated and demanned.
The fog horn was decommissioned in 1998 and replaced with an automatic electronic fog signal; at the time it was the last compressed-air fog signal still in use in the United Kingdom. As of 2022 the rotating optic continues in use for the light.
Lighthouse Heritage Centre
Opened in 2009 with a grant from the
Heritage Lottery Fund
The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom.
History
The fund's predecessor bodies were ...
, the Lizard Lighthouse Heritage Centre is located in the lighthouse engine room, which still features some of the original engines. Interactive exhibits and displays focus on the history of the lighthouse, the life of a lighthouse keeper, and the role of lighthouses in sea safety. Currently, the buildings around the site are being used as holiday cottages.
Original machinery
One of the lighthouse's old magneto-electric generators is now in the collection of
Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum
Thinktank, Birmingham (formerly known as simply Thinktank) is a science museum in Birmingham, England. Opened in 2001, it is part of Birmingham Museums Trust and is located within the Millennium Point complex on Curzon Street, Digbeth.
Hi ...
.
[Birmingham Museums Trust accession record 1954S00295] The other is still ''in situ'' in the engine house;
it carries a plate marked:
After the compressed-air foghorn was decommissioned its machinery was left in place and it was still occasionally sounded to mark special occasions.
Prior to the opening of the Heritage Centre two of the four Gardner engines were removed (one with its attached compressor, the other with its attached generator); they were subsequently acquired by the
Internal Fire Museum of Power
The Internal Fire Museum of Power is a museum of internal combustion engines in West Wales. The museum's collection is mostly of larger stationary diesel engines, as used for generating sets and pumping stations. The museum is located at Tan-y-gr ...
in Wales.
The other two compressor sets remain in place in the engine room.
Gallery
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
Lizard Lighthouse Heritage Centre- official site
Lizard Lighthouse information at Trinity HouseVideo of the 1908 fog siren in action(shortly before its decommissioning)
Video tour of the lighthouse prior to automationby ex-keeper Peter Halil
{{Authority control
1619 establishments in England
Grade II listed buildings in Cornwall
Grade II listed lighthouses
Lighthouse museums in England
Lighthouses completed in 1619
Lighthouses completed in 1751
Lighthouses in Cornwall
Lighthouses of the English Channel
Lizard Peninsula
Museums in Cornwall
Towers completed in 1751