It is doubtful whether the name of any lighthouse is so familiar throughout the English-speaking world as the “Eddystone.” Certainly no other “pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day,” can offer so romantic a story of dogged engineering perseverance, of heartrending disappointments, disaster, blasted hopes, and brilliant success.

Standing out in the English Channel, about sixty miles east of the Lizard, is a straggling ridge of rocks which stretches for hundreds of yards across the marine thoroughfare, and also obstructs the western approach to Plymouth Harbour. But at a point some nine and a half miles south of Rame Head, on the mainland, the reef rises somewhat abruptly to the surface, so that at low-water two or three ugly granite knots are bared, which tell only too poignantly the complete destruction they could wreak upon a vessel which had the temerity or the ill luck to scrape over them at high-tide. Even in the calmest weather the sea curls and eddies viciously around these stones; hence the name “Eddystones” is derived.

From the days when trading vessels first used the English Channel the reef has been a spot of evil fame. How many ships escaped the perils and dangers of the seven seas only to come to grief on this ridge within sight of home, or how many lives have been lost upon it, will never be known. Only the more staggering holocausts, such as the wreck of the Winchelsea, stand out prominently in the annals of history, but these serve to emphasize the terrible character of the menace offered. The port of Plymouth, as may be supposed, suffered with especial severity.

As British overseas traffic expanded, the idea of indicating the spot for the benefit of vessels was discussed. The first practical suggestion was put forward about the year 1664, but thirty-two years elapsed before any attempt was made to reduce theory to practice. Then an eccentric English country gentleman, Henry Winstanley, who dabbled in mechanical engineering upon unorthodox lines, came forward and offered to build a lighthouse upon the terrible rock. Those who knew this ambitious amateur were dubious of his success, and wondered what manifestation his eccentricity would assume on this occasion. Nor was their scepticism entirely misplaced. Winstanley raised the most fantastic lighthouse which has ever been known, and which would have been more at home in a Chinese cemetery than in the English Channel. It was wrought in wood and most lavishly embellished with carvings and gilding.

Four years were occupied in its construction, and the tower was anchored to the rock by means of long, heavy irons. The light, merely a flicker, flashed out from this tower in 1699 and for the first time the proximity of the Eddystones was indicated all round the horizon by night. Winstanley’s critics were rather free in expressing their opinion that the tower would come down with the first sou’-wester, but the eccentric builder was so intensely proud of his achievement as to venture the statement that it would resist the fiercest gale that ever blew, and, when such did occur, he hoped that he might be in the tower at the time.

Fate gratified his wish, for while he was on the rock in the year 1703 one of the most terrible tempests that ever have assailed the coasts of Britain gripped the structure, tore it up by the roots, and hurled it into the Channel, where it was battered to pieces, its designer and five keepers going down with the wreck. When the inhabitants of Plymouth, having vainly scanned the horizon for a sign of the tower on the following morning, put off to the rock to investigate, they found only the bent and twisted iron rods by which the tower had been held in position projecting mournfully into the air from the rock-face. Shortly after the demolition of the tower, the reef, as if enraged at having been denied a number of victims owing to the existence of the warning light, trapped the Winchelsea as she was swinging up Channel, and smashed her to atoms, with enormous loss of life.

Although the first attempt to conquer the Eddystone had terminated so disastrously, it was not long before another effort was made to mark the reef. The builder this time was a Cornish labourer’s son, John Rudyerd, who had established himself in business on Ludgate Hill as a silk-mercer. In his youth he had studied civil engineering, but his friends had small opinion of his abilities in this craft. However, he attacked the problem boldly, and, although his tower was a plain, business-looking structure, it would have been impossible to conceive a design capable of meeting the peculiar requirements of the situation more efficiently. It was a cone, wrought in timber, built upon a stone and wood foundation anchored to the rock, and of great weight and strength. The top of the cone was cut off to permit the lantern to be set in position. The result was that externally the tower resembled the trunk of an oak-tree, and appeared to be just about as strong. It offered the minimum of resistance to the waves, which, tumbling upon the ledge, rose and curled around the tapering form without starting a timber.

Rudyerd, indeed, may be considered to be the father of the science of modern lighthouse designing, because the lines that he evolved have never been superseded for exposed positions even in these days of advanced engineering science, greater constructional facilities, and improved materials. Rudyerd’s ingenuity and skill received a triumphant vindication when the American engineers set out to build the Minot’s Ledge and Spectacle Reef lighthouses, inasmuch as these men followed slavishly in the lines he laid down, and their achievements are numbered among the great lighthouses of the world to-day.

Rudyerd built his tower with infinite care, although he was harassed in his operations by the depredations of French privateers, who haunted this part of the British coast. On one occasion the whole of the men were surprised while at their work, and were borne off in triumph as prisoners of war to France. Louis XIV., however, heard of the capture, and the privateers, instead of being honoured for the catch, as they anticipated, were strongly reprimanded and compelled to release their captures. “Their work is for the benefit of all nations. I am at war with England, not with humanity,” was the Sovereign’s comment; and by way of compensation the prisoners were loaded with presents and reconveyed to the rock, to resume their toil.

For forty years Rudyerd’s structure defied the elements, and probably would have been standing to this day had it not possessed one weak point. It was built of wood instead of stone. Consequently, when a fire broke out in the lantern on December 4, 1755, the flames, fanned by the breeze, rapidly made their way downwards. The keepers were impotent and sought what refuge they could find under projecting crags below, as the lead which had been employed in construction melted into drops and rained down on all sides, so that the unfortunate men were exposed to another and more alarming danger. In fact, one man, while watching the progress of the fire, was drenched with a shower of molten metal, some of which, he declared, had entered his open mouth and had penetrated into his stomach. When rescued he was writhing in fearful agony, but his story was received with incredulity, his comrades believing that the experience had turned his brain and that this was merely one of his delusions. When the man died, a post-mortem examination was made, and the doctors discovered ample corroboration of the man’s story in the form of a lump of lead weighing some seven ounces!

No time was lost in erecting another tower on the rock, for now it was more imperative than ever that the reef should be lighted adequately. The third engineer was John Smeaton, who first landed on the rock to make the surveys on April 5, 1756. He was able to stay there for only two and a quarter hours before the rising tide drove him off, but in that brief period he had completed the work necessary to the preparation of his design. Wood had succumbed to the attacks of tempest and of fire in turn. He would use a material which would defy both—Portland stone. He also introduced a slight change in the design for such structures, and one which has been universally copied, producing the graceful form of lighthouse with which everyone is so familiar. Instead of causing the sides to slope upwards in the straight lines of a cone, such as Rudyerd adopted, Smeaton preferred a slightly concave curve, so that the tower was given a waist at about half its height. He also selected the oak-tree as his guide, but one having an extensive spread of branches, wherein will be found a shape in the trunk, so far as the broad lines are concerned, which coincides with the form of Smeaton’s lighthouse. He chose a foundation where the rock shelved gradually to its highest point, and dropped vertically into the water upon the opposite side. The face of the rock was roughly trimmed to permit the foundation-stones of the tower to be laid. The base of the building was perfectly solid to the entrance level, and each stone was dovetailed securely into its neighbour.

From the entrance, which was about 15 feet above high-water, a central well, some 5 feet in diameter, containing a staircase, led to the storeroom, nearly 30 feet above high-water. Above this was a second storeroom, a living-room as the third floor, and the bedroom beneath the lantern. The light was placed about 72 feet above high-water, and comprised a candelabra having two rings, one smaller than, and placed within, the other, but raised about a foot above its level, the two being held firmly in position by means of chains suspended from the roof and secured to the floor. The rings were adapted to receive twenty-four lights, each candle weighing about 2¾ ounces. Even candle manufacture was in its infancy in those days, and periodically the keepers had to enter the lantern to snuff the wicks. In order to keep the watchers of the lights on the alert, Smeaton installed a clock of the grandfather pattern in the tower, and fitted it with a gong, which struck every half-hour to apprise the men of these duties. This clock is now one of the most interesting relics in the museum at Trinity House.

The first stone of the tower was laid on a Sunday in June, 1757, as the date on the block indicates; and although work had to be pursued fitfully and for only a few hours at a time between the tides, in the early stages, Smeaton seized every opportunity offered by the wind and sea to push the task forward. For four years the men slaved upon the rock, and, although the mechanical handling appliances of those days were primitive, the tower was completed without a single mishap. The solidity of the structure, and its lines, which, as the engineer stated, would offer the minimum of resistance to the Atlantic rollers, but at the same time would insure the utmost stability, aroused widespread admiration, for it was felt that the engineer had triumphed over Nature at last. Many people expressed a desire to see how the tower would weather such a storm as carried away Winstanley’s freakish building, especially as, in a roaring sou’-wester, the waves hurled themselves upon the ledge to wreathe and curl upwards to a point far above the dome, blotting the light from sight. The supreme test came in 1762, when the lighthouse was subjected to a battering and pounding far heavier than any that it had previously known. But the tower emerged from this ordeal unscathed, and Smeaton’s work was accepted as invulnerable.

The lighthouse had been standing for 120 years, when ominous reports were received by the Trinity Brethren concerning the stability of the tower. The keepers stated that during severe storms the building shook alarmingly. A minute inspection of the structure was made, and it was found that, although the work of Smeaton’s masons was above reproach, time and weather had left their mark. The tower was becoming decrepit. The binding cement had decayed, and the air imprisoned and compressed within the interstices by the waves was disintegrating the structure slowly but surely. While there was no occasion to apprehend a sudden collapse, still it was considered advisable to take precautionary measures in time. Unfortunately, it was not feasible to strengthen Smeaton’s tower so adequately as to give it a new lease of life, while lighthouse engineering had made rapid strides in certain details since it was completed. Another factor to be considered was the desire for a more elevated light, capable of throwing its rays to a greater distance.

Under these circumstances it was decided to build a new tower on another convenient ledge, forming part of the main reef, about 120 feet distant. Sir James Douglass, the Engineer-in-Chief to Trinity House, completed the designs and personally superintended their execution. The Smeaton lines were taken as a basis, with one important exception. Instead of the curve commencing at the foundations, the latter comprised a perfect cylindrical monolith of masonry 22 feet in height by 44 feet in diameter. From this base the tower springs to a height which brings the focal plane 130 feet above the highest spring-tides. The top of the base is 30 inches above high-water, and the tower’s diameter at this point being less than that of its plinth, the set-off forms an excellent landing-stage when the weather permits.

The site selected for the Douglass tower being lower than that chosen by Smeaton, the initial work was more exacting, as the duration of the working period was reduced. The rock, being gneiss, was extremely tough, and the preliminary quarrying operations for the foundation-stones which had to be sunk into the rock were tedious and difficult, especially as the working area was limited. Each stone was dovetailed, not only to its neighbour on either side, but below and above as well. The foundation-stones were dovetailed into the reef, and were secured still further by the aid of two bolts, each 1½ inches in diameter, which were passed through the stone and sunk deeply into the rock below. The exposed position of the reef enabled work to be continued only fitfully during the calmest weather, for often when wind and sea were quiet the rock was inaccessible owing to the swell. Upon the approach of bad weather everything was made fast under the direct supervision of the engineer—a man who took no chances.

From the set-off the tower is solid to a height of 25½ feet, except for two fresh-water tanks sunk in the floor of the entrance-room, which hold 4,700 gallons. At this point the walls are no less than 8½ feet thick, and the heavy teak door is protected by an outer door of gun-metal, weighing a ton, both of which are closed during rough weather.

The tower has eight floors, exclusive of the entrance; there are two oilrooms, one above the other, holding 4,300 gallons of oil, above which is a coal and store room, followed by a second storeroom. Outside the tower at this level is a crane, by which supplies are hoisted, and which also facilitates the landing and embarkation of the keepers, who are swung through the air in a stirrup attached to the crane rope. Then in turn come the living-room, the “low-light” room, bedroom, service-room, and finally the lantern. For the erection of the tower, 2,171 blocks of granite, which were previously fitted temporarily in their respective positions on shore, and none of which weighed less than 2 tons, were used. When the work was commenced, the engineer estimated that the task would occupy five years, but on May 18, 1882, the lamp was lighted by the Duke of Edinburgh, the Master of Trinity House at the time, the enterprise having occupied only four years. Some idea may thus be obtained of the energy with which the labour was pressed forward, once the most trying sections were overcome.

Whereas the former lights on this rock had been of the fixed type, a distinctive double flash was now introduced. The optical apparatus is of the biform dioptric type, emitting a beam of some 300,000 candle-power intensity, which is visible for seventeen miles. In addition to this measure of warning, two powerful Argand burners, with reflectors, were set up in the low-light room for the purpose of throwing a fixed ray from a point 40 feet below the main flashing beam, to mark a dangerous reef lying 3½ miles to the north-west, known as Hand Deeps. When the new tower was completed and brought into service, the Smeaton building was demolished. This task was carried out with extreme care, inasmuch as the citizens of Plymouth had requested that the historic Eddystone structure might be re-erected on Plymouth Hoe, on the spot occupied by the existing Trinity House landmark. The authorities agreed to this proposal, and the ownership of the Smeaton tower was forthwith transferred to the people of Plymouth. But demolition was carried out only to the level of Smeaton’s lower storeroom. The staircase, well and entrance were filled up with masonry, the top was bevelled off, and in the centre of the stump an iron pole was planted. While the Plymouth Hoe relic is but one half of the tower, its re-erection was completed faithfully, and, moreover, carries the original candelabra which the famous engineer devised.

Not only is the Douglass tower a beautiful example of lighthouse engineering, but it was relatively cheap. The engineer, when he prepared the designs, estimated that an outlay of £78,000, or $390,000, would be incurred. As a matter of fact, the building cost only £59,255, or $296,275, and a saving of £18,000, or $90,000, in a work of this magnitude is no mean achievement. All things considered, the Eddystone is one of the cheapest sea-rock lights which has ever been consummated.