Round Island Lighthouse ( kw, Golowji an Voth "the hump lighthouse"), in the

Isles of Scilly The Isles of Scilly (; kw, Syllan, ', or ) is an archipelago off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, England. One of the islands, St Agnes, is the most southerly point in Britain, being over further south than the most southerly point of the ...

was designed by William Tregarthen Douglass for Trinity House and completed in 1887. At the time of building it was one of three lights in the Isles of Scilly, the others being the

Bishop Rock The Bishop Rock ( kw, Men Epskop) is a skerry off the British coast in the northern Atlantic Ocean known for its lighthouse. It is in the westernmost part of the Isles of Scilly, an archipelago off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsu ...

and St Agnes lighthouse. The light was modernised in 1966, automated in 1987 and the island designated as a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

(SSSI) in 1995. It is now managed by the

Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust The Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust, formed in 1985, is a Wildlife Trust covering the Isles of Scilly, a group of islands off the coast of Cornwall. It became the 46th member of The Wildlife Trusts in 2001 and is dedicated to ensuring that the a ...

, and except for the maintenance of the Grade II listed lighthouse, landing is not allowed.

History

cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehis ...

or burial chamber was destroyed when the lighthouse was built. Cairns on the Isles of Scilly date back to the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

and at that time Round Island was probably a peninsula on the northern shore of the main island in the Isles of Scilly. The

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

, tall tower was designed by William Tregarthen Douglass, chief engineer for the Commissioners of Irish Lights, and is built on a tall mass of Hercynian granite. At the time of building the only access was up a flight of steps cut out of the rock on the south side of the island. Supplies were taken up the rock face by an aerial hoist: a wire rope strung between the island and an adjacent islet was rigged with a

traveller Traveler(s), traveller(s), The Traveler(s), or The Traveller(s) may refer to: People Generic terms *One engaged in travel *Explorer, one who searches for the purpose of discovery of information or resources *Nomad, a member of a community withou ...

, which enabled goods to be winched up from delivery boats below. Within the walls of the lighthouse the keepers tended a small vegetable garden, for which the soil was transported to the island. The light has a

focal plane In Gaussian optics, the cardinal points consist of three pairs of points located on the optical axis of a rotationally symmetric, focal, optical system. These are the '' focal points'', the principal points, and the nodal points. For ''ideal'' ...

of 180 feet, and originally had an enormous biform hyperradial optic high and weighing more than 8 tons. It was built by Chance Brothers & Co of Birmingham and, said at the time, to be ″'' .... in relation both to size and character .... the most remarkable works of their kind hitherto achieved.''″ A similar optic had been installed in the nearby

Bishop Rock Lighthouse The Bishop Rock ( kw, Men Epskop) is a skerry off the British coast in the northern Atlantic Ocean known for its lighthouse. It is in the westernmost part of the Isles of Scilly, an archipelago off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsu ...

the previous year. In order to differentiate the Round Island light from Bishop's Rock it was made to show a single red flash every 30 seconds (whereas Bishop's Rock gave a double white flash). At the centre of the optic was a pair of ten-wick Douglass oil burners (larger than the eight-wick burners installed at Bishop Rock); these unusually large lamps helped compensate for the reduced intensity caused by the light passing through red-tinted glass. Mineral oil for the lamps was stored in tanks, located at the south end of the island alongside the aerial host. The optic was turned by a small air engine placed in the pedestal; compressed air was provided from a set of compressors and tanks located in a separate engine house (a detached building to the south of the tower), powered by a pair of Davey 'Safety' Engines. In 1912 the lighthouse was provided with a fog siren, sounded through a pair of large red-painted Rayleigh Trumpets mounted on the roof of a fog horn house, adjacent to the lighthouse itself on the north side. It sounded four blasts every two minutes. The engine house was upgraded and equipped with a pair of 22 hp Hornsby oil engines which drove the compressor. These remained in service until the late 1960s, when they were replaced with diesel engines. Britain's first wireless beacon for navigation, designed for Trinity House by the

Marconi Company The Marconi Company was a British telecommunications and engineering company that did business under that name from 1963 to 1987. Its roots were in the Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company founded by Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 ...

, was established at Round Island Lighthouse in 1927, (following the trial run of an experimental system there two years earlier). The installation consisted of a 'multi-wire inverted L type aerial' strung between the lighthouse gallery and a steel lattice tower. It automatically transmitted a repeated cycle, including the station's unique call sign ('GGG' in

Morse code Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of ...

), for nine minutes every half hour (or continuously in foggy weather). Similar systems were subsequently installed at lighthouses and other locations around the coast of Britain. Later, in 1961, a more powerful radio beacon set was installed on the island. In 1966 the light was electrified. The old hyperradial optic was replaced by a flat vertical panel with rows of sealed beam lamps, each covered by a red shade, which was mounted on an AGA revolving gearless pedestal. A helicopter pad was built on the rock alongside the lighthouse in 1969, but boat deliveries also continued; the aerial hoist was upgraded in 1972. The optic was replaced again in 1987 when the light was automated and its colour changed from red to white, emitting one white flash every ten seconds; it had an intensity of 340,000 candela and a range of . Prior to automation, the siren was replaced with an electric nautophone signal. In 2002-3 the lighthouse was converted to solar power, with photovoltaic cells replacing the erstwhile constantly running diesel alternator sets as the power source for the light and fog signal. The lighthouse continues to display one white flash every ten seconds; the revolving drum optic has an intensity of 42,945 candela and a range of . 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 ...

sounds four blasts every minute.

Wildlife and ecology

Round Island was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1995 as part of the Pentle Bay, Merrick and Round Islands SSSI. The island is important for its breeding seabirds, especially the European storm–petrel (''

Hydrobates pelagicus The European storm petrel, British storm petrel, or just storm petrel (''Hydrobates pelagicus'') is a seabird in the northern storm petrel family, Hydrobatidae. The small, square-tailed bird is entirely black except for a broad, white rump and ...

''). Breeding storm–petrels were unrecorded on Round Island for many years, until one of the lighthouse keepers, mystified by the nightly appearance of black feathers in the living quarters, decided to keep some. When the identity of the bird was discovered, the cat was banished. The Seabird 2000 survey counted 183 occupied nests and a follow–up survey in 2006 found 251 occupied nests on the island; the second highest total in the Isles of Scilly. The seabird survey in 2000 also recorded 34 occupied nests of

Manx shearwater The Manx shearwater (''Puffinus puffinus'') is a medium-sized shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. The scientific name of this species records a name shift: Manx shearwaters were called Manks puffins in the 17th century. Puffin is an ...

(''Puffinus puffinus'').

Puffins Puffins are any of three species of small alcids (auks) in the bird genus ''Fratercula''. These are pelagic seabirds that feed primarily by diving in the water. They breed in large colonies on coastal cliffs or offshore islands, nesting in crev ...

(''Fratercula arctica'') were first recorded as breeding on Round Island in 1850 by Issac North and during the building of the lighthouse it was said that ″''They (puffins) were extremely tame and used to walk in and out of the kitchen of the workmen who built the tower. This tameness, and the edibility of their eggs, proved their undoing, for none survive now''″. Brown rats ('' Rattus norvegicus'') were discovered on the island in January 2022 and volunteers landed on the island thirteen times to set up bait stations, which removed the rats before the return of Manx shearwater and European storm petrel in April. If the rats were not removed they would have ate the chicks. On the last couple of trips to remove the rats, teeth marks of the Scilly shrew (''Crocidura suaveolens'') were found on non-toxic chocolate wax. With the removal of rats the population should also recover. Permission is needed from Trinity House to land on the island and only two botanists are known to have visited. The first, J. E. Lousley, in 1957, only recorded the invasive Hottentot fig ('' Carpobrotus edulis''). Thirty years later, in 1987, Rosemary Parslow found much of the ground between the buildings and the cliff edge was covered in a carpet of purple dewplant (''

Disphyma crassifolium ''Disphyma crassifolium'', commonly known as round-leaved pigface, is a species of flowering plant in the family Aizoaceae and is native to Australia and the Cape Provinces of South Africa. It is a Prostrate shrub, prostrate, succulent plant, suc ...

'') and Hottentot fig. She also recorded a small number of the expected coastal species. They were sea spleenwort (''

Asplenium marinum ''Asplenium marinum'' is a fern known as the sea spleenwort because of its preference for maritime habitats. Located around the coasts of Europe from Italy in the South to Norway in the North, its most Southern distribution extends to the Norther ...

''), bird's–foot trefoil ('' Lotus corniculatus''), spear–leaved orache (''

Atriplex prostrata ''Atriplex prostrata'', called the spear-leaved orache, hastate orache, thin-leaf orache, triangle orache, and fat hen, is a widespread species of flowering plant in the saltbush genus ''Atriplex ''Atriplex'' () is a plant genus of about 250 ...

''), sea beet ('' Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima''), rock sea spurrey (''

Spergularia rupicola ''Spergularia rupicola'' is a species of flowering plant belonging to the family Caryophyllaceae Caryophyllaceae, commonly called the pink family or carnation family, is a family of flowering plants. It is included in the dicotyledon order Ca ...

''), thrift ('' Armeria maritima'') and tree mallow (''

Lavatera arborea ''Malva arborea'' (also known as ''Lavatera arborea'', or, more recently as ''Malva eriocalyx''), the tree mallow, is a species of mallow native to the coasts of western Europe and the Mediterranean region, from Ireland and Britain south to Alger ...

''). Gusts of winds can be ferocious such as in 1954 when there was continuous gales from 29 November to 16 December. Wind velocities of 177 km/h ( 110 mph) were recorded at the Bishop Rock where seas raced past the window, and on Round Island the

wind gauge Wind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few hou ...

was destroyed at 177 km/h.

References

External links

Round Island Lighthouse at Trinity House

Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust
* online information Trinity House. {{DEFAULTSORT:Round Island Light, Isles Of Scilly Grade II listed lighthouses Lighthouses completed in 1887 Lighthouses in the Isles of Scilly Sites of Special Scientific Interest in the Isles of Scilly Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1995 Uninhabited islands of the Isles of Scilly

History

Wildlife and ecology

See also

References

External links