Trwyn Du 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....

 between Dinmor Point near Penmon and Ynys Seriol, or Puffin Island

Puffin Island, Anglesey

Puffin Island is an uninhabited island off the eastern tip of Anglesey, Wales. It was formerly known as Priestholm in English and Ynys Lannog in Welsh.-Geography:...

, south east Anglesey

Anglesey

Anglesey , also known by its Welsh name Ynys Môn , is an island and, as Isle of Anglesey, a county off the north west coast of Wales...

, at the north entrance to the Menai Strait

Menai Strait

The Menai Strait is a narrow stretch of shallow tidal water about long, which separates the island of Anglesey from the mainland of Wales.The strait is bridged in two places - the main A5 road is carried over the strait by Thomas Telford's elegant iron suspension bridge, the first of its kind,...

 (grid reference

Grid reference

Grid references define locations on maps using Cartesian coordinates. Grid lines on maps define the coordinate system, and are numbered to provide a unique reference to features....

: SH 6 44815) and marking the passage between the two islands.

History of site

There had been a call for a light at this location for some years by master shipmen in the nearby city of Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

 especially after the steamer the Rothsay Castle ran aground and broke up nearby in 1831 with 130 people losing their lives. The first lighthouse was erected in 1838, at a price of £11,589.

Present lighthouse

The present Lighthouse is 29m tall and was designed by James Walker and built in 1835-1838. It was his first sea-washed tower

Tower

A tower is a tall structure, usually taller than it is wide, often by a significant margin. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires....

, and a prototype for his more ambitious tower on the Smalls.

The Lighthouse has a stepped base designed to discourage the huge upsurge of waves that had afflicted earlier lighthouses on the site and reduce the force of the water at the bottom of the tower.

Austere vertical walls, instead of the usual graceful lines of other rock towers, are probably an economy measure. The tower has a crenellated stone parapet

Parapet

A parapet is a wall-like barrier at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony or other structure. Where extending above a roof, it may simply be the portion of an exterior wall that continues above the line of the roof surface, or may be a continuation of a vertical feature beneath the roof such as a...

, in preference to iron railings on the gallery, and narrows in diameter above the half-way point. These are a features used by Walker in his other lighthouse designs. The tower is distinguished by its original three black bands painted on a white background.

Walker also pioneered, unsuccessfully, the use of a primitive water closet, comprising a specially designed drain exiting at the base of the tower. The stepped design of the lighthouse may have helped water exit the closet, but surges of seawater made its use difficult during heavy weather.

One of the many Lighthouse keepers was Joseph Steer, born in 1831 at Bovey Tracey, Devon.(source UK census of 1881)
More details of the lighthouse can be found at http://www.penmon.org/page6.htm

Modernisation

The lamp was converted to solar power in 1996 and the lighthouse was modernised extensively at that time.

At present the Lighthouse has a 15,000 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...

 light that can be seen 12 nmi (22.2 km) away and a 178 kilogram fog bell that sounds once every thirty seconds. There was also a lifeboat station built in 1832, nearby, but this closed in 1915.

The tower has been unmanned since 1922 and is checked from Holyhead Control Centre.

Access and facilities

Dinmor Point is accessible by heading east out of Beaumaris and through Llangoed

Llangoed

Llangoed is a small village and community just north of Beaumaris, on the Isle of Anglesey or Ynys Môn, at . The Royal Mail postcode begins LL58...

. For a small fee you can go along a toll road

Toll road

A toll road is a privately or publicly built road for which a driver pays a toll for use. Structures for which tolls are charged include toll bridges and toll tunnels. Non-toll roads are financed using other sources of revenue, most typically fuel tax or general tax funds...

and park very close to the lighthouse or park for free about a mile from the lighthouse. Although it is very close to land it is not quite possible to reach the lighthouse from land as is indicated by the large message on the tower itself "No passage landwards". The area around Dinmor contains a cafe, shop and toilets and is good for fishing.

External links