St Bees Lighthouse is a 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....

 located on St Bees Head near the village of St Bees

St Bees

St Bees is a village and civil parish in the Copeland district of Cumbria, in the North of England, about five miles west southwest of Whitehaven. The parish had a population of 1,717 according to the 2001 census. Within the parish is St...

 in Cumbria

Cumbria

Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...

, England.

The first lighthouse on the site began its life in 1718 on land brought by Trinity House

Trinity House

The Corporation of Trinity House of Deptford Strond is the official General Lighthouse Authority for England, Wales and other British territorial waters...

, one of the UK's General Lighthouse Authorities

General Lighthouse Authority

A General Lighthouse Authority is a dedicated Government Agency of a Country or Nation tasked with and responsible for the provision and maintenance of lighthouses, lightvessels, navigational aids and any other equipment or facilities which ensure the safety of mariners and sailors navigating the...

. It was constructed by Thomas Lutwige who paid a lease of £20 per year for the site. It stood 9 metres tall and was 5 metres in diameter. To make money Lutwidge levied charges of 3½ pence per tonne of cargo carried by vessels to nearby ports. It was burnt down in 1822, perhaps because by that year it was the last coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

 powered lighthouse in the UK.

In its place an oil fired house was built by Joseph Nelson at a cost of £2,322 and is still in use today. The tower is 17 metres high and stands an average of 102 metres above sea level. In the interwar period the lighthouse was used as a turning marker in the London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 to Isle of Man

Isle of Man

The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...

 air races. During World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 the local Home Guard used it to practise defence/attack strategies although there is no record of ammunition being fired at it. By 1987 it was fully electrified and automated, giving a beam of 134,000 candela

Candela

The candela is the SI base unit of luminous intensity; that is, power emitted by a light source in a particular direction, weighted by the luminosity function . A common candle emits light with a luminous intensity of roughly one candela...

which can be seen 21 nmi (38.9 km) away.