Qualla: Whiteford Lighthouse

Whiteford Lighthouse: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thomas Guest, CC BY 2.0. At low tide on Whiteford Sands you can walk to it. The lighthouse stands offshore in the open inlet, a tapered black tower made from 105 cast-iron plates bolted together, riveted to 88 wooden piles driven into glacial moraine 160 years ago. There is no road, no causeway, no keeper's cottage on the rock. At high tide the sea comes up around the base and the tower stands alone in moving water - which is exactly what its builders intended. Whiteford is the only wave-swept cast-iron lighthouse left in Britain, and one of the very few that ever existed anywhere in the world.

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Image: Thomas Guest | CC BY 2.0

Whiteford Lighthouse: John Bowen's Design

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rainer Boettchers, Public domain. John Bowen of Llanelli designed the lighthouse for the Llanelli Harbour and Burry Navigation Commissioners in 1865, to mark the dangerous shoals of Whiteford Point at the western end of the Gower Peninsula. He was working in a tradition that was already old: the first cast-iron B...

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Image: Rainer Boettchers | Public domain

Whiteford Lighthouse: Iron Plates and Wrought Straps

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Colin Smith, CC BY-SA 2.0. The construction was meticulous. Eighty-eight wooden piles were driven into the glacial moraine at low tide, linked horizontally with 500 cast-iron walling pieces and bolts, then partially filled with concrete to form the foundation. The tower itself rose in eight tapered courses...

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Image: Colin Smith | CC BY-SA 2.0

Whiteford Lighthouse: Argand Lamps

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jaggery, CC BY-SA 2.0. Three Argand lamps and reflectors were fitted - one pointed toward the south channel of Lynch Pool, one toward Burry Port, one toward Llanelli - and in 1876 the Harbour Master added a fourth lamp shining west along the north channel. The Argand lamp, invented in 1780 by Aimé Arga...

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Image: Jaggery | CC BY-SA 2.0

Whiteford Lighthouse: Decommission and Revival

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Lewis, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1920 Trinity House took over responsibility for the light and decided to establish a new beacon at Burry Holms across the inlet. The Whiteford lamps were extinguished. They stayed dark for sixty years. Then, in the 1980s, the local yachting community made the case that the lig...

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Image: David Lewis | CC BY-SA 2.0

Whiteford Lighthouse: Scheduled Monument

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Keith Lawson 11, CC BY-SA 4.0. Carmarthenshire County Council now owns it. Cadw - the Welsh historic environment service - lists Whiteford as Grade II* for what is, in the dry language of heritage law, 'a rare survival of a wave-swept cast-iron lighthouse in British coastal waters'. It is also a Scheduled Anci...

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Image: Keith Lawson 11 | CC BY-SA 4.0