Qualla: Lizard Lighthouse

Lizard Lighthouse: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Worm That Turned, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sir John Killigrew did not get rich from his lighthouse. In 1619 he raised a tower at Lizard Point at his own expense, lit it with coal, and watched as the funds to keep it burning failed to materialise. In 1630, eleven years after first light, the tower came down. The Cornish cliffs that had eaten so many ships went dark again. It took another 121 years before someone tried again - and this time the light stayed on.

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Image: Worm That Turned | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lizard Lighthouse: Two Towers and Nineteen Lamps Each

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Reading Tom from Reading, UK, CC BY 2.0. The current lighthouse was built in 1751 by Thomas Fonnereau, the landowner who finally made the economics work. He did something unusual: he built two towers, joined by keepers' cottages, each topped with a coal-fired brazier. The pair was meant to be unmistakable - any vessel s...

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Image: Reading Tom from Reading, UK | CC BY 2.0

Lizard Lighthouse: Electricity Comes to the Cliff

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Trevor Rickard, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 29 March 1878, electric lights were first lit at the Lizard, powered by Siemens dynamos. The same year a steam-driven fog siren began sounding, one blast every five minutes through a 15-foot horizontal horn that could be swivelled depending on the wind. In 1885 the dynamos wer...

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Image: Trevor Rickard | CC BY-SA 2.0

Lizard Lighthouse: The Last Compressed-Air Foghorn in Britain

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 4.0. Automation came in 1998. The last keepers left, and the great compressed-air fog siren - by then the last of its kind still operating in the United Kingdom - was silenced and replaced with a modern electronic signal. The rotating optic, more than a century after Thomas Matthews d...

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Image: Nilfanion | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lizard Lighthouse: The Welcome Beacon

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 4.0. For generations of sailors crossing back from the Americas, Africa, or the Mediterranean, the Lizard light was the first piece of England that announced itself. On a clear night its reflected glow could be seen 100 miles out at sea. Captains kept their watches on, sometimes for d...

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Image: Nilfanion | CC BY-SA 4.0