“Immediately opposite Looe church, fourteen miles off and visible from the parade and hills, is the Eddystone lighthouse, built by the late Mr. Smeaton of Yorkshire. The lantern is an octagon of about nine feet diameter. Till within a few years last past, it used to be lighted with twenty-four very large candles, sixteen in one round frame, and eight in another. Now Argand lamps are used, with highly polished reflectors. The candle light was not frequently seen from Looe by the naked eye: now the light is very strong, and in dark nights does not appear above a league distant.
“At highwater the sea nearly embraces the base of the building. You ascend to the door by a ladder on the outside, almost perpendicular, according to my recollection, about fourteen staves long. You then arrive at the stairs within the building, which have, as no space can be lost, a coal place under them. The first room you come to is where the men keep their water, &c.; the next is a store room, where they keep their provisions, candles, &c. Round the room is engraved, as in relief, “Except the Lord keep the house, they labour but in vain that build it.” From this room you ascend to the next, which is the kitchen, by a ladder which goes up into a circular hole in the centre of the room. A large copper cover, like that of a saucepan, is placed to prevent falling through. You ascend to the next room, which is the bed room, in the same manner, this room is about twelve feet diameter. You next ascend in like manner into the lanthorn, which has a seat round it. Outside the lanthorn is a walk railed in round it. The view from hence is singularly and awfully grand, and perhaps has not its like. On the outside of the lanthorn are engraved the cardinal points of the compass, and over the door, “24th August, 1759.—Laus Deo.”
The village of Cawsand in this parish gives name to a bay, which before the construction of the artificial reef, afforded the only shelter in Plymouth Sound.
Rame measures 1296 statute acres.
| £. | s. | d. | |
| Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 | 2,872 | 0 | 0 |
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 333 | 15 | 0 |
| Population,— | |||
| in 1801, 904 | in 1811, 978 | in 1821, 807 | in 1831, 896 |
giving a decrease of one per cent. in 30 years, with great fluctuations in the middle period, in consequence of the differences round Plymouth between war and peace.
Present Rector, the Rev. Thomas Hunt Ley, presented by the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe in 1824.
THE GEOLOGY, BY DR. BOASE.
This parish is principally composed of strata of red and greenish-grey slate, inclosing here and there beds of a compact quartzose rock. These rocks are all similar to those of St. Anthony, and to those in the cliff under Mount Edgcumbe, and at Saltash; but whether they belong to the calcareous series, or to a more recent one associated with the fossilliferous limestone of Plymouth, remains to be ascertained.