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construction, including the use of dovetail joints and marble dowels, as well as a device for hoisting large blocks of stone from ships to the di ying heights the tower s crown. meatons Tower first shone on th ctober 5 , and held firm until the 0s when crac s began to form in the roc beneath. After 0 years, the top half was dismantled and re-erected on Plymouth Hoe as a monument to the builder. That brings us to ouglass tower, of . After the dismantling of meaton s, no time was wasted. That said, the task of building a new tower did represent a great opportunity to incorporate many of the day’s most advanced ideas in lighthouse construction, which, by , had become a far more scientific endeavour. William ouglass built the present lighthouse using larger stones, dovetailed to each other on all sides, as well as to the courses above and below. The structure was complete in 1882 and was opened by the u e of dinburgh, who laid the final stone. In May 1982 – a century later – it became the first Trinity ouse roc lighthouse to be automated.
Tater Du Lighthouse, built 1965 pened by The u e of loucester in 5, Tater u is ornwall s most recently built lighthouse. Its construction was prompted in 1963 by the tragic loss of Spanish coaster, Juan Ferrier, and the lives of 11 on board. It was built as an automatic installation, to warn ships of the deadly unnelstone oc s to the west of en ance. Modernised in 1996, it’s now monitored and controlled from the Trinity House Planning Centre. It is di cult nowadays to imagine the coastline at night without the recognisable signals of these iconic Cornish structures. Similarly to our engine houses and historic stone circles, they are a visible reminder of our heritage specifically, of our historic relationship with the ocean. espite the known dangers of our coastlines and the countless lives lost at sea, they are nevertheless recent additions to the landscape, and by virtue of their being present, remind us of a time when they weren’t.
One word that seems apt along much of Cornwall’s coastline, at least for sailors, is ‘inhospitable’. This is certainly the case for the shoreline between Pendeen and Gurnard’s Head. Without any form of guiding light and with the high cliffs bloc ing out any view of other lighthouses to the east or west, many ships have foundered along this stretch, particularly on the groups of sunken and exposed rocks near Pendeen Watch. No surprise then, that at the close of the 19th century, Trinity House decided to erect a lighthouse and fog signal here. The facility was automated in 1995, with the keepers leaving their station and relinquishing control of the signal to Trinity House’s Planning Centre in Essex.
Wusel007, CC BY-SA 3.0
trinityhouse.co.uk
Pendeen Lighthouse, built 1900
A B OV E The wreck of the RMS Mülheim, near and s nd
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