Qualla: Lighthouses on Lundy

Lighthouses on Lundy: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MichaelMaggs, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Old Light on Lundy stands on Beacon Hill, four hundred and sixty-nine feet above the Bristol Channel. When Trinity House built it in 1819, that elevation was meant to be its great advantage: a beam visible from horizon to horizon, the highest lighthouse base in Britain. In practice, the height became the problem. The fog that haunts the Bristol Channel does not crawl along the surface of the sea. It rises. On most foggy nights, the island below the lighthouse was clear, and only the lighthouse itself, perched on its hill, was wrapped in cloud — entirely invisible to the ships it was supposed to save. "The lighthouse stands so high," one nineteenth-century report observed, "that it is capped by fog." Sailors died because of this geometry.

Read more: Lighthouses on Lundy on Qualla

Image: MichaelMaggs | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lighthouses on Lundy: The Architect and the Cost

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rob Noble, CC BY-SA 2.0. Daniel Asher Alexander designed the Old Light. He had previously designed Dartmoor Prison and the warehouses at the London Docks — a man with a particular feel for severe, functional, granite-and-fortress architecture. The tower is ninety-seven feet of granite, square-shouldered ...

Read more: Lighthouses on Lundy on Qualla

Image: Rob Noble | CC BY-SA 2.0

Lighthouses on Lundy: Cannon, Then Guncotton

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James Ayres, CC BY-SA 2.0. Around 1861, Trinity House conceded the lighthouse alone was inadequate and built a Fog Signal Battery on the west cliff. Two eighteen-pound guns fired once every fifteen minutes when fog rolled in — later increased to every ten minutes. The sound of muzzle-loading cannon firing ...

Read more: Lighthouses on Lundy on Qualla

Image: James Ayres | CC BY-SA 2.0

Lighthouses on Lundy: Two New Lights

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Steve Hodgson from Edinburgh, Scotland, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1897 the Old Light was decommissioned. Two new lighthouses, designed by Sir Thomas Matthews, opened at the north-west and south-east tips of Lundy — both close to sea level, where they could actually be seen from the water. The North lighthouse, at its opening, was described i...

Read more: Lighthouses on Lundy on Qualla

Image: Steve Hodgson from Edinburgh, Scotland | CC BY-SA 2.0

Lighthouses on Lundy: Foghorns and Explosives

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dickelbers, CC BY-SA 3.0. Lundy's fog problem demanded fog signals as much as it demanded lights. The North lighthouse got a two-tone siren — four blasts, low-high-low-high, every two minutes, powered by sixteen-horsepower Hornsby oil engines, sounded through curved horns on the roof. In 1929 it was repla...

Read more: Lighthouses on Lundy on Qualla

Image: Dickelbers | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lighthouses on Lundy: The Light That Stayed Off

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Old Light has stood disused since 1897, but it is still here. Trinity House sold the lease back, and the Landmark Trust now owns the tower and the keepers' accommodation. The accommodation is rented out as self-catering holiday lets — you can sleep in the rooms the lighthouse...

Read more: Lighthouses on Lundy on Qualla

Image: Nilfanion | CC BY-SA 3.0