South Foreland Lighthouse
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Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
lighthouse
Lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways....
on the South Foreland
South Foreland
South Foreland is a chalk headland on the Kent coast of southeast England. It presents a bold cliff to the sea, and commands views over the Strait of Dover. It is northeast of Dover and 15 miles south of North Foreland...
in St. Margaret's Bay
St. Margaret's Bay
St. Margaret's Bay may refer to:In Canada* St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia on the South Shore of Nova Scotia* St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia , a political division* Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova ScotiaIn England...
, Dover
Dover
Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, used to warn ships approaching the nearby Goodwin Sands
Goodwin Sands
The Goodwin Sands is a 10-mile-long sand bank in the English Channel, lying six miles east off Deal in Kent, England. The Brake Bank lying shorewards is part of the same geological unit. As the shoals lie close to major shipping channels, more than 2,000 ships are believed to have been wrecked...
. It went out of service in 1988 and is currently owned by the National Trust
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
. A lighthouse had previously stood on the site since at least 1730 and during most of this time it was manned by the Knott family (lighthouse keepers).
South Foreland was the first lighthouse to use an electric light. By 1875 the lighthouse was using carbon arc lamps
Arc lamp
"Arc lamp" or "arc light" is the general term for a class of lamps that produce light by an electric arc . The lamp consists of two electrodes, first made from carbon but typically made today of tungsten, which are separated by a gas...
powered by a steam driven magneto
Magneto (electrical)
A magneto is an electrical generator that uses permanent magnets to produce alternating current.Magnetos adapted to produce pulses of high voltage are used in the ignition systems of some gasoline-powered internal combustion engines to provide power to the spark plugs...
.
It was used by Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor, known as the father of long distance radio transmission and for his development of Marconi's law and a radio telegraph system. Marconi is often credited as the inventor of radio, and indeed he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand...
during his work on radio waves
Radio waves
Radio waves are a type of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum longer than infrared light. Radio waves have frequencies from 300 GHz to as low as 3 kHz, and corresponding wavelengths from 1 millimeter to 100 kilometers. Like all other electromagnetic waves,...
, receiving the first ship-to-shore message from the East Goodwin lightship, the first ship-to-shore distress message (when a steamship ran into the same lightship, and the lighthouse relayed the message up the coast to the Walmer lifeboat
Walmer and Deal lifeboats
Walmer Lifeboat Station was established in 1830. Over two thousand ships are believed to have been wrecked on the Goodwin Sands, and the masts of several wrecks are visible from the shore at low tide...
), and the first international transmission (from Wimereux
Wimereux
Wimereux is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France.-Geography:Wimereux is a coastal town situated some north of Boulogne, at the junction of the D233 and the D940 roads, on the banks of the river Wimereux. The river Slack forms the northern boundary of...
, France, in 1899).
Originally there was another lighthouse further down towards the cliff edge to give a bearing
Bearing (navigation)
In marine navigation, a bearing is the direction one object is from another object, usually, the direction of an object from one's own vessel. In aircraft navigation, a bearing is the actual compass direction of the forward course of the aircraft...
on the leading lights
Leading lights
Leading lights are a pair of light beacons, used in navigation to indicate a safe passage for vessels entering a shallow or dangerous channel; and may also be used for position fixing. At night, the lights are a form of leading line that can be used for safe navigation...
principle when a ship was at the point where it could safely turn left into the Downs behind the sands or right to go safely around the Sands. They were both built in the 1840s. However, the Sands shifted over the following years until this bearing became dangerously inaccurate and so the lower light was taken out of service in 1910. It still survives as part of a private garden but is under threat from cliff erosion.
The destruction of Trinity House records during the last war has prompted considerable conjecture about this lighthouse's history because other source material is hard to find. Whilst beacons or votive lights may have existed from early times one of the first reliable references is found the Penny Magazine 19th Sept. 1835, pp365, which states that Charles I granted letters-patent to'continue and renew' the lighthouses at the North and South Forelands to Sir John Meldrum. Presumably, a record exists,somewhere of an earlier bequest.
It is a fact that two lighthouses still stand here, but it is by no means certain why they were built. The popular leading lights theory lacks conviction, since turning to port or starboard upon lining up the two lights would not automatically lead to safe passage unless the navigator knew precisely how far the ship was from land. A stronger argument seems to be that ships coming from the north might line up the lights in order to determine when it was safe to turn in for Dover Harbour. Seamen sailing up the channel might use these lights, not as leading lights (as popular opinion has it), but simply as lights in transit when another bearing is needed to confirm position. It is also uncertain why two lights were built in 1840 to give a lead when a Trinity House lightship had been stationed at the South Sands Head since 1832 precisely for that purpose. Lieutenant John Hay (British Channel Piloting, 1850) lists many bearings in the Downs using churches, buildings, mills, castles, and the upper South Foreland lighthouse, but makes no mention of one using both South Foreland lighthouses. Greg Holyoake, in his book Deal:All in the Downs, in a seemingly well-researched chapter on lighthouses and lightships (p. 100) says two lighthouses were first built at the South Foreland to distinguish it from the North Foreland. He also suggests the two lights served as a transit.
We do know from charts as far back as the 17th century that the cyclic movement of the Sands was known. Richard Larne (Shipwrecks of the Goodwin Sands) estimates the increase/decrease at 4000 feet a century. It would seem to have been a foolish act to build two lighthouses to cover a bearing that so soon would be useless. Less widely known is the fact that a lightship of sorts is said to have been stationed at the South Sands Head since Elizabethan times for the express purpose of guiding the fleet into the anchorage of the Downs, although evidence for this assertion is slim. How effective a primitive light vessel may have been is a matter of speculation.
We know, also, that multiple lights were a feature of many locations before occulting lights arrived to give a station clear identity at night. The Cornwall Tourist Board website says: "Trinity House built a two coal fired station (at the Lizard).... The signal continued as two fixed lights until 1903... in 1903 the two tower system was stopped and a single flashing light used."
The presence of two lights at the South Foreland distinguished it from its close neighbour at the North Foreland. A rotating mechanism, which presumably allowed the light to occult, was installed in 1904. Shortly afterwards (1910) the second lighthouse was taken out of service.
There is also a twin lighthouse at the North Foreland
North Foreland
North Foreland is a chalk headland on the Kent coast of southeast England.North Foreland forms the eastern end of the Isle of Thanet. It presents a bold cliff to the sea, and commands views over the southern North Sea.-Lighthouse:...
, on the coast at Broadstairs
Broadstairs
Broadstairs is a coastal town on the Isle of Thanet in the Thanet district of east Kent, England, about south-east of London. It is part of the civil parish of Broadstairs and St Peter's, which includes St. Peter's and had a population in 2001 of about 24,000. Situated between Margate and...
, which is still in operation (though automated).
The South Foreland Lighthouse is also one of the landmarks mentioned in the British sea shanty
Sea shanty
A shanty is a type of work song that was once commonly sung to accompany labor on board large merchant sailing vessels. Shanties became ubiquitous in the 19th century era of the wind-driven packet and clipper ships...
"Spanish Ladies
Spanish Ladies
Spanish Ladies is a traditional English naval song, describing a voyage from Spain to the Downs from the viewpoint of ratings of the British Royal Navy.- Origins :...
".