May's Item of the Month: Guiding Lights

02 May 2014

May's Item of the month is a guest Item of the month. The new Museum exhibition Guiding Lights,  celebrates 500 years of Trinity House, the authority for Light Houses in England and Wales. Exhibition Curator Gillian Hutchinson takes a closer look at a rare book, A Narrative of the building and a description of the construction of the Edystone [sic] lighthouse with stone, by John Smeaton, Civil Engineer, F.R.S., 1791.

John Smeaton had never built a Light House. So when the previous Eddystone Light House (off the Devon/Cornwall coast) burned down in 1755, he literally started from scratch and built a new one that lasted until the Victorians dismantled it in 1877. It was then re-erected on Plymouth Hoe where it still stands today. So, if you've ever wondered how a Light house was built (or dismantled!) and what they have in common with a London kerbstone, here's your answer