page_title: Eddystone Lighthouse
section_title: Rudyard's lighthouse
hierarchical_section_title: Eddystone Lighthouse / Rudyard's lighthouse
caption_attribution_description: English: Cross section of Mr. Rudyard's design for the Eddystone Lighthouse, off Plymouth, England. Constructed 1706-1709, burned down 1755.
context_page_description: The Eddystone Lighthouse is a lighthouse that is located on the dangerous Eddystone Rocks, 9 statute miles south of Rame Head in England. While Rame Head is in Cornwall, the rocks are submerged below the surface of the sea and composed of Precambrian gneiss.
  The current structure is the fourth to be built on the site. The first and second were destroyed by storm and fire respectively. The third, also known as Smeaton's Tower, is the best known because of its influence on lighthouse design and its importance in the development of concrete for building. Its upper portions have been re-erected in Plymouth as a monument. The first lighthouse, completed in 1699, was the world's first open ocean lighthouse although the Cordouan lighthouse preceded it as the first offshore lighthouse.
context_section_description: Following the destruction of the first lighthouse, Captain John Lovett acquired the lease of the rock, and by Act of Parliament was allowed to charge passing ships a toll of one penny per ton. He commissioned John Rudyard (or Rudyerd) to design the new lighthouse, built as a conical wooden structure around a core of brick and concrete. The vertical wooden planks which sheathed the structure were installed by two master-shipwrights and caulked like those of a ship; and the whole structure was anchored to the reef using thirty-six wrought iron bolts forged to fit deep holes which had been machine-cut in the reef. A light was first shone from the tower on 28 July 1708 and the work was completed in 1709. The light was provided by 24 candles. This proved more durable, surviving nearly fifty years.
  On the night of 2 December 1755, the top of the lantern caught fire, probably through a spark from one of the candles used to illuminate the light, or else through a fracture in the chimney which passed through the lantern from the stove in the kitchen below.  The three keepers threw water upwards from a bucket but were driven onto the rock and were rescued by boat as the tower burnt down.  Keeper Henry Hall, who was 94 at the time, died several days later from ingesting molten lead from the lantern roof. A report on this case was submitted to the Royal Society by physician Edward Spry, and the piece of lead is now in the collections of the National Museums of Scotland.
caption: Elevation of Rudyard's lighthouse finished in 1709
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