Godrevy Lighthouse

The Stones claimed many ships, prompting calls for a lighthouse to be built, but nothing came of plans until the wreck of the iron screw steamer SS Nile during a storm on 30 November 1854. All of her passengers and crew, numbering about 40 people in total, were lost. The disaster prompted fresh calls for a light to be built. Richard Short, a St Ives master mariner, wrote to the Shipping and Mercantile Gazette the day after the news of the sinking broke to note: "[H]ad there been a light on Godrevy Island, which the inhabitants of this town have often applied for, it would no doubt have been the means of warning the ill-fated ship of the dangerous rocks she was approaching. Many applications…

The lighthouse is a white octagonal tower, 86 ft high and made of rubble stone bedded in mortar. It is situated almost in the centre of the island and was originally provided with cottages for the keepers. The first light was an oil lamp within a large (first-order) revolving catadioptric optic by Henri Lepaute of Paris, which flashed white every ten seconds; it consisted of 24 Fresnel lens panels with multiple rows of reflecting prisms above and below. There was also a fixed red light below the main light, which could be seen over a 45-degree arc of danger from the reef. The main light's rotation was powered by a clockwork motor, driven by a large weight that descended down a cavity in the…