lighthouse

Lighthouses of antiquity

The forerunners of lighthouses proper were beacon fires kindled on hilltops, the earliest references to which are contained in the Iliad and the Odyssey (c. 8th century bce). The first authenticated lighthouse was the renowned Pharos of Alexandria, which stood some 350 feet (about 110 metres) high. The Romans erected many lighthouse towers in the course of expanding their empire, and by 400 ce there were some 30 in service from the Black Sea to the Atlantic. These included a famous lighthouse at Ostia, the port of Rome, completed in 50 ce, and lighthouses at Boulogne, France, and Dover, England. A fragment of the original Roman lighthouse at Dover still survives.

The Phoenicians, trading from the Mediterranean to Great Britain, marked their route with lighthouses. These early lighthouses had wood fires or torches burning in the open, sometimes protected by a roof. After the 1st century ce, candles or oil lamps were used in lanterns with panes of glass or horn.

Medieval lighthouses

The decline of commerce in the Dark Ages halted lighthouse construction until the revival of trade in Europe about 1100 ce. The lead in establishing new lighthouses was taken by Italy and France. By 1500, references to lighthouses became a regular feature of books of travel and charts. By 1600, at least 30 major beacons existed.

These early lights were similar to those of antiquity, burning mainly wood, coal, or torches in the open, although oil lamps and candles were also used. A famous lighthouse of this period was the Lanterna of Genoa in Italy, probably established about 1139. It was rebuilt completely in 1544 as the impressive tower that remains a conspicuous seamark today. The keeper of the light in 1449 was Antonio Columbo, uncle of the Columbus who crossed the Atlantic. Another early lighthouse was built at Meloria, Italy, in 1157, which was replaced in 1304 by a lighthouse on an isolated rock at Livorno. In France the Roman tower at Boulogne was repaired by the emperor Charlemagne in 800. It lasted until 1644, when it collapsed owing to undermining of the cliff. The most famous French lighthouse of this period was one on the small island of Cordouan in the estuary of the Gironde River near Bordeaux. The original was built by Edward the Black Prince in the 14th century. In 1584 Louis de Foix, an engineer and architect, undertook the construction of a new light, which was one of the most ambitious and magnificent achievements of its day. It was 135 feet in diameter at the base and 100 feet high, with an elaborate interior of vaulted rooms, richly decorated throughout with a profusion of gilt, carved statuary, and arched doorways. It took 27 years to build, owing to subsidence of the apparently substantial island. By the time the tower was completed in 1611, the island was completely submerged at high water. Cordouan thus became the first lighthouse to be built in the open sea, the true forerunner of such rock structures as the Eddystone Lighthouse.

The influence of the Hanseatic League helped increase the number of lighthouses along the Scandinavian and German coasts. At least 15 lights were established by 1600, making it one of the best-lighted areas of that time.

During this period, lights exhibited from chapels and churches on the coast frequently substituted for lighthouses proper, particularly in Great Britain.

The beginning of the modern era

The development of modern lighthouses can be said to have started about 1700, when improvements in structures and lighting equipment began to appear more rapidly. In particular, that century saw the first construction of towers fully exposed to the open sea. The first of these was Henry Winstanley’s 120-foot-high wooden tower on the notorious Eddystone Rocks off Plymouth, England. Although anchored by 12 iron stanchions laboriously grouted into exceptionally hard red rock, it lasted only from 1699 to 1703, when it was swept away without a trace in a storm of exceptional severity; its designer and builder, in the lighthouse at the time, perished with it. It was followed in 1708 by a second wooden tower, constructed by John Rudyerd, which was destroyed by fire in 1755. Rudyerd’s lighthouse was followed by John Smeaton’s famous masonry tower in 1759. Smeaton, a professional engineer, embodied an important new principle in its construction whereby masonry blocks were dovetailed together in an interlocking pattern. Despite the dovetailing feature, the tower largely relied on its own weight for stability—a principle that required it to be larger at the base and tapered toward the top. Instead of a straight conical taper, though, Smeaton gave the structure a curved profile. Not only was the curve visually attractive, but it also served to dissipate some of the energy of wave impact by directing the waves to sweep up the walls.

Owing to the undermining of the foundation rock, Smeaton’s tower had to be replaced in 1882 by the present lighthouse, constructed on an adjacent part of the rocks by Sir James N. Douglass, engineer-in-chief of Trinity House. In order to reduce the tendency of waves to break over the lantern during severe storms (a problem often encountered with Smeaton’s tower), Douglass had the new tower built on a massive cylindrical base that absorbed some of the energy of incoming seas. The upper portion of Smeaton’s lighthouse was dismantled and rebuilt on Plymouth Hoe, where it still stands as a monument; the lower portion or “stump” can still be seen on the Eddystone Rocks.

Following the Eddystone, masonry towers were erected in similar open-sea sites, which include the Smalls, off the Welsh coast; Bell Rock in Scotland; South Rock in Ireland; and Minots Ledge off Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. The first lighthouse of the North American continent, built in 1716, was on the island of Little Brewster, also off Boston. By 1820 there were an estimated 250 major lighthouses in the world.