whitford

Whitford Lighthouse

Whiteford Point Lighthouse is located off the coast at

Whiteford Point near Whiteford Sands, on the Gower Peninsula. It is an unusual cast-iron lighthouse built in 1865 to a design by

John Bowen (1825–1873) of Llanelli, by the Llanelli Harbour and

Burry Navigation Commissioners to mark the shoals of

Whiteford Point, replacing an earlier piled structure of 1854, of

which nothing remains. It is the only wave-swept cast-iron tower

of this size in Britain. The tower is 44 feet (13 m) high and

stands just above low-water level. The base is about 24 feet (7.3 m) in diameter and rises gracefully to a diameter of 11 feet 6

inches (3.51 m) at lantern level. A pitched stone apron

surrounds the base of the lighthouse.

The lighthouse sits on 88 wooden piles driven into glacial

moraine. These are linked horizontally by walling pieces, using

500 cast-iron plants and bolts. These would have formed a box,

probably square or octagonal, which would have been

excavated and partially filled with concrete. The materials were

delivered by boat and work undertaken during low tide.

The structure of the shell is formed from 105 bent and tapered

cast-iron plates, each about 32 millimetres (1.3 in) thick, with an

upstand flange on each side, and bolted with cast-iron bolts,

each weighing 2 pounds (0.91 kg). There are eight levels of

panel tapering to the sixth 'course'. The first three horizontal

joints are covered by iron bands supported on brackets and

topped with fillets of concrete. During the 1870s vertical cracks developed in the plates of the

lowest three rings. A local blacksmith called Powell made

wrought-iron straps which were bolted to the flanges on each

side of the cracked plates. At the time, the cracks were put down

to lateral pressures arising from the settlement of the inner

masonry, being composed of rough beach stones and 'bad'

mortar. By 1884, 150 straps had been fitted. The compaction of

the fill may have been compounded by movement (swaying) of

the tower, reported in 1884 by the lighthouse keeper to have

been 'several inches'. In 1885, the ground around the tower was

strengthened with the addition of a concrete skirt 18 inches (46

cm) deep, bound by a 2-inch (5.1 cm) wide iron band, effectively

anchoring the skirt to the base of the tower. The equipment for the lighthouse is listed in an inventory of 1888

and indicates that provision was made for two lighthouse

keepers, although each of the census returns of 1871, 1881,

1891, and 1901 names one keeper. The working pattern was

two weeks at Whitford Lighthouse alternating with two weeks at

Llanelli Harbour Lighthouse.

Three Argand lamps and reflectors were fitted, one towards the

Lynch Pool or south channel, one towards Burry Port, and one

towards Llanelli. In 1876, the Harbour Master set a fourth lamp

to shine west along the north channel. The Admiralty chart of

1887 shows the "Arc of Visibility" of the lights from slightly west

of south, through north, to slightly south of east. The lighthouse was discontinued in 1920, when responsibility for

the light was transferred to Trinity House, who decided to

establish a new beacon at Burry Holms. However, after pleas

from local yachtsmen, the light was relit in the 1980s. This gave

an additional point of reference when navigating the waters

between the Gower Peninsula and Burry Port: on dark nights,

boat crews often found themselves on top of Whiteford Point

before realizing the fact. The cost was £1,300, with £1,000 being funded by the Harbour Commissioners and the balance by Burry

Port Yacht Club. The new light was fully automatic and switched

on when daylight faded to a pre-determined level. Two nautical

almanacs published in 1987, Reeds, and Macmillan and Silk

Cut, listed Whiteford Lighthouse as flashing every five seconds. After a failure of the solar unit, the light was removed and not

replaced. However, the lighthouse still has navigational value in

daylight. It is now owned by Carmarthenshire County Council.

The first known cast-iron British lighthouse was at Swansea

Harbour and was built in 1803. The architect was Jernegan, and

the plates were cast at the Neath Abbey Ironworks. Cast iron was also used for Maryport Lighthouse, Cumberland,

in 1834. In 1836, the lighthouse at the Town Pier, Gravesend,

Kent, was built from cast iron. In 1842, two cast-iron leading

lights were erected at Aberdeen, with elegant tapering octagonal

towers and a smooth external face. At Sunderland, another well-

known example was built on the pier head in 1856.

The first 'solid' rock or wave-washed cast-iron tower was erected on the exposed Fastnet Rock in 1854, but this cracked and was

replaced by a masonry tower in 1904. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the engineer Alexander

Gordon designed a number of fine cast-iron towers for colonial

waters. These were cast at Pimlico and shipped out to be

erected by comparatively unskilled labour. Some still survive in

Jamaica and Bermuda, and a cast-iron tower at Tiri-tiri, New

Zealand, built in 1920, is one of the last in this material. Whiteford Lighthouse is the only cast-iron lighthouse in Britain

which is wave-washed, although it can be reached on foot at low

tide. The handful of other surviving lighthouses of this type stand

well clear of the water on either harbour piers or reefs. Whitford Lighthouse is listed by Cadw as Grade II* as a rare

survival of a wave-swept cast-iron lighthouse in British coastal

waters, and an important work of cast-iron architecture and

nineteenth-century lighthouse design and construction. It is also

a Scheduled Ancient Monument.