A very relaxed day today with only one visit planned, to Lizard Point. We had breakfast then set off to the most southerly point in mainland Britain and the twin towers of the Lizard Lighthouse. Luckily the traffic wasn’t too bad on the single track road despite the couple of cyclists that are obviously a lot braver than me riding down a single track lane with lorries and camper vans passing them with just inches to spare! We arrived at the car park at exactly 10am which is when the lighthouse opens, but unfortunately they were obviously working on a slightly different timezone to us as we had to wait for them to open before going in to buy our ticket for a tour of the lighthouse and have a look at the museum. This is still a working lighthouse so you are only allowed in on a guided tour, although guided is a bit of a loose term because although she showed us the way she didn’t really seem to know much about lighthouses, luckily the museum was quite informative so we got a lot of information from that. There has been a lighthouse here for over 260 years, a charter was granted in 1619 to build the original tower which only lasted about nine years, then King James I set a levy of one halfpenny per ton on all vessels passing Lizard Point, apparently this caused uproar from shipowners who opposed such a fee. The current two towers and accommodation for families was built in 1751 and Trinity house took control in 1791. The original coal flame lights were replaced by oil lights in 1811, before the construction of an engine room in 1874 which allowed electrical power to provide the navigational light. In 1903 the addition of a First Order rotating optic in the eastern tower provided a high-powered carbon arc light which made the western tower redundant, this led to the lantern being extinguished and removed, as technology improved electric filament light bulbs were used from 1936 to 1998 when there was no longer a need for keeper to operate the lighthouse manually due to the site being fully automated. The tower is actually only 19 metres tall, but it is on the top of cliffs so is probably quite obvious. Originally because this is a land based lighthouse the families of the lighthouse keepers lived with them, although sadly all the cottages they lived in have now been turned into holiday rentals so we couldn’t go round any of them. The light has a range of 26 nautical miles and has one white flash every three seconds. While we were waiting for the tour we played with the exhibits, I built a lighthouse tower and we both had a go at making the fog horn work then it was time to go into the lighthouse. Trinity, who are responsible for all the lighthouse and maker buoys in England automated the Lizard point lighthouse in 1998 and the lighthouse keepers departed at the same time, the lighthouse is now monitored from Essex which seems a strange place to monitor it from but I assume it is where they have a major operations centre, when it was first built Trinity employed a number of different trades, one of which was carpenters who made all the furniture for the lighthouse, this was all made to measure and each of the curved walls had cabinets as well as desks and tables, the cooking floor had magnificent oak cabinets that when you opened the bottom cupboard contained a sink! Apparently when the lighthouse keepers changed shifts they attached cloths to their hands and feet to make sure they polished the floor and the brass handrails as they walked between their home and the lighthouse, they also seemed to use the children to clean the windows of the light as salt in the air can change the distance the light is visible for. It was opened to the public in 2009 and tours started, although as I said earlier the woman that showed us round, although she obviously liked the building, didn’t seem to know much about the lights or how it operated at all. The light is actually floating on a bed of mercury to keep it stable as the mechanisms vibrations can knock it off centre and has two bulbs so that if one fails Essex can rotate the other one into place and a local maintenance team are called to replace the dead bulb, apparently they are moving to LED lights so the glass will no longer be required but she didn’t know when this was due to happen. After we finished walking round the grounds we set off on the short walk to the cafe overlooking Lizard Point, where we had a massive cream tea for lunch! After trying to walk this off for a while we went back to the car to head back to the apartment where we treated ourselves to a drink overlooking St Michales mount and the harbour.
