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St Bees Lighthouse is a lighthouse located on St Bees Head near the village of St Bees in Cumbria, England. The cliff-top light is the highest in England at 102 m (335 ft) above sea level.[3]
 St Bees Lighthouse | |
 | |
| Location | St Bees Head, Cumbria, England |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 54.513644°N 3.636739°W |
| Tower | |
| Constructed | 1718 |
| Construction | stone tower |
| Automated | 1987 |
| Height | 17 m (56 ft) |
| Shape | cylindrical tower with balcony and lantern |
| Markings | white tower and lantern |
| Power source | mains electricity  |
| Operator | Trinity House[1] [2] |
| Light | |
| First lit | 1867 |
| Focal height | 102 m (335 ft) |
| Lens | 1st order 920 mm catadioptric |
| Intensity | 60,000 candela |
| Range | 18 nmi (33 km; 21 mi) |
| Characteristic | Fl (2) W 20s. |
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The first lighthouse on the site began its life in 1718 on land bought by Trinity House, one of the UK's general lighthouse authorities. It was constructed by Thomas Lutwi[d]ge, who paid a lease of £20 per year for the site. It stood 9 metres tall and was 5 metres in diameter topped with a large metal grate on which the lighthouse keeper would burn coal. To make money Lutwi[d]ge levied charges of 3½ pence per tonne of cargo carried by vessels to nearby ports.[4]
In 1740 the Governors of St Bees School leased the lighthouse, with adjoining parcels of land. late in the tenure of Thomas Lutwidge, to Joseph Burrow of Whitehaven esquire for 5 guineas (£5, 5 shillings) at 1 shilling annual rent.[5]
In 1822 it was the last coal-powered lighthouse in Britain,[6] when it was destroyed by a fire in which the keeper's wife and five children perished by suffocation.[7]
In its place a circular tower, 27 feet (8.2 m) high, with 15 oil-powered Argand lamps set within parabolic reflectors, was built by engineer Joseph Nelson at a cost of £1,447; it was operational from 1823.[8]
In 1866 this was in turn replaced by a new, higher round tower, built (along with two new dwelling houses for the keepers)[9] further inland.[10]
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The foundation stone of the current tower was laid in a ceremony on 10 May 1865,[11] with construction by builder John Glaister[12] of Whitehaven. Civil engineer Henry Norris[13] supervised the construction as resident engineer on behalf of Trinity House. Beneath the foundation stone a zinc box was laid containing a dated scroll signed by Henry Norris & John Glaister as well as by the others present at ceremony together with newspapers and coins of the realm.[14]
The tower is 17 metres (56 ft) high and stands an average of 102 metres (335 ft) above sea level.[10] It was built of local sandstone[15] topped by a lantern that was originally destined for Gibraltar[16] It was provided with a large (first-order) catadioptric optic, supplied by Chance Brothers & Co., with a single lamp, supplied by Messrs. W. Wilkins & Co. of Long Acre.[17] The optic included a 'dioptric mirror' (i.e. a set of double-reflecting prisms) which redirected light from the landward side of the lamp back out to sea.[18]
The new lighthouse was still under construction in late November 1866 when Henry Norris was sued by a painter in court in Whitehaven who had not been paid for lettering a notice board at the lighthouse;[19] but it was operational by the end of the year.[10] By the 1890s it was displaying a group-occulting light,[10] on the following pattern: visible for 24 seconds, eclipsed for 2 seconds, visible for 2 seconds, eclipsed for 2 seconds; the light could be seen up to 24 nautical miles (44 km; 28 mi) out to sea.[20]
From 1913 an explosive fog signal was sounded from the lighthouse;[21] it remained operational into the second half of the century.[22] In the interwar period the lighthouse was used as a turning marker in the London to Isle of Man air races.[23] During World War II the local Home Guard used it to practise defence/attack strategies although there is no record of ammunition being fired at it.[24] The light was electrified in the mid-1950s.[25] In the early 1960s a triple-frequency Tannoy electric fog signal was provided,[26] in a detached building very close to the edge of the cliff.[27]
At Whitehaven Archives there is the Register of Reports on Supernumerary Assistant Keepers between 9 June 1925 and 14 May 1976 listing every keeper at the Light between those dates- too numerous to list here. A Chronological and name index has been compiled and appended to the Archive Catalogue Record.[28] There is a list of keepers between 1841 and 1910 on GenUKI.[29]
In 1987 the light was fully electrified, giving a beam of 134,000 candela which can be seen 18 nmi (33 km) away. It was also de-manned and automated at this time: the light was then one of five to be remotely monitored from the Trinity House depot at Holyhead.[26] In 1999 the light was further modernised (the lamp being replaced with a cluster of three 250W halogen lamps)[3] after which it was monitored from the Trinity House Planning Centre in Harwich.[10]
In February 2021 the (by then obsolescent) halogen lamps were removed and a new 90W LED light was installed (still within the original 1866 optic), which has succeeded in providing a more energy-efficient light source without any reduction in its range (18 Nautical Miles).[3] It flashes twice every 20 seconds. The fog signal has been discontinued; it used to sound two blasts every 45 seconds.[30]
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