The South Devon Coast

by Charles G. Harper

CHAPTER XXVII
THE STORY OF THE EDDYSTONE—THE GUILDHALL—ST. ANDREW’S

Excursion steamers in summer take thousands of visitors from the Hoe Pier out to the Eddystone, and so in many minds renew the moving story of that fatal reef. The existing lighthouse is the fourth to be built in this terrible isolation, whose loneliness appeals more to the imagination when viewing the solitary tower in the hazy distance, from the Hoe, than when it is seen at close quarters. At a distance its puny proportions in relation to the surrounding leagues of restless sea are realised with a shudder at the temerity of its builders, but near at hand the massive character of its masonry is the first thing to attract attention. If the daring of modern engineers inspires respect, what should be those emotions with which we look back upon the first audacious attempts to rear a lighthouse upon the tiny foothold of the exposed Eddystone, so far back as 1696?

It was early in 1665 that the first proposal for lighting this dangerous reef, full in the course of ships passing up or down Channel, was made; Sir John Coryton and one Henry Brouncker petitioning the Duke of York, the then Lord High Admiral, for permission to build a number of lighthouses, and, incidentally, one on the Eddystone. This proposal, referred to the Trinity House, was eventually reduced to a scheme for the Eddystone only, and the projectors, who were not proposing to benefit mankind without a good profit for themselves, were to be recouped their outlay by a charge of 2d. a ton on foreign shipping entering West Country ports: English vessels to be free of charge.

Nothing more was ever heard of this early project, but in 1692 one Walter Whitfield made a bid for a patent from the Trinity House, by which he was to be authorised, at his own risk, to build a lighthouse, to reap the entire profits for a term of three years, and one-half for the next fifty years: the undertaking then to revert to the Trinity House. A patent was granted on these terms in 1694, but no works were initiated, and even when a revised agreement was made in 1696, it was not Whitfield, but Winstanley, who designed and built the first Eddystone Lighthouse. Under this compact the projector’s term of full profits was extended from three to five years.

WINSTANLEY’S EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE.

Henry Winstanley was a singular genius: very much of an artist, something, but not much, of an engineer, and a wholly sanguine person. He commenced operations on the rock on July 14th, 1696, his workmen being occupied all that summer in drilling holes and fixing the iron stanchions that were to support his building. Sometimes he and his men slept on the rock itself, on other occasions they were rowed at nightfall to the guardship Terrible, which, lent by the Admiralty, stood off and on all day. In June 1697, the commander of this ship, one Commissioner St. Loe, thought well to go off upon a wholly unauthorised cruise for nearly a week, and in the meanwhile a French privateer pounced upon Winstanley and his men, took Winstanley prisoner and, taking away the last stitch of the workmen’s clothing, turned them adrift in their boat. To the credit of the French government, Winstanley was speedily released, and the too zealous captain of the privateer seems to have been reprimanded for excess of zeal; while St. Loe was peremptorily asked by the Admiralty for an explanation of his conduct. In the midsummer of 1698 Winstanley’s lighthouse was completed and on November 14th, shed the first warning gleam across the waters. It was a remarkable structure. Rising to a height of about eighty feet to its weather-vane, it was fantastic in outline, beautiful in colour and gilding, and adorned with devices of the sun in splendour and the imposing inscriptions, “Pax in terra. Post tenebras lux. Glory be to God.” It was rather more picturesque than even a Chinese pagoda, and offered so many angles of resistance to the wind that we can only marvel how the elements in those four years allowed him to complete it, and then suffered it to remain another three years. If picturesque beauty were the sole consideration in lighthouse-building this mingled stone and timber tower with its strange suggestions of Wren’s City of London church steeples and the “Queen Anne” architecture of Bedford Park, was surely the finest lighthouse ever built. It proclaims itself in every circumstance the work of an artist, and was to its smallest detail unpractical. Winstanley even provided a highly picturesque means of defence against an enemy: a contrivance in an upper gallery that would drop heavy stones upon his boats; and he designed an elaborate room, from which, in the picture, you see him fishing, and apparently trying to hook one of the boat’s crew pushing off from the rock.

Many of these ornate features were found to be hazardous; the tower itself was not sufficiently lofty, and alterations were made in 1699, by which its height was increased to 120 feet. Remodelled, it was, in Winstanley’s own opinion, as safe as any castle ashore, and he expressed himself as only too eager to be in his lighthouse when the worst storm ever known was blowing. On November 26th, 1703, he had his wish. He put off from the Barbican at Plymouth for the Eddystone on the afternoon of that day, when all the signs pointed to an unprecedented tempest. That night was the night of the famous storm that levelled uncounted trees, unroofed and wrecked many mansions, and sunk fleets of shipping. Henry Winstanley was born at Littlebury, near Saffron Walden, but he is not buried there, for on that night he and his lighthouse and the lighthouse-keepers perished together. When morning dawned the rock was bare, except for one surviving link of iron chain. Winstanley’s project had lost considerably more than £3,000, and his widow was reduced to seeking a pension from the Government; but a singular fascination seems to have impelled private persons to risk their all in a work that should have been the sole concern of the Trinity House. A certain John Lovett, merchant, of London, was the next to enter this, as a commercial project, and the designer of his lighthouse was Rudyerd, a Ludgate Hill silk mercer. He began work in 1706, and by 1709 had completed a wooden tower, which lasted nearly fifty years, and was then destroyed by fire, December 2nd, 1755. There were three keepers. Their efforts at subduing the flames were useless, the molten lead from the roof driving them into the crannies of the rock; where they went through such terrors of exposure to the cold and the waves on the one hand, and the cascades of melted lead on the other that one, raving mad, plunged to death in the sea. Two actually survived the occasion, but one of these was thought a lunatic by the rescuing party. He declared that while he stood looking up at the flames, some molten lead had run down his throat. In the course of twelve days he died, and his incredible story was proved by nearly eight ounces of lead being found in his stomach. Incidentally, Lovett was ruined.