page_title: St Bees Lighthouse
section_title: The current lighthouse
hierarchical_section_title: St Bees Lighthouse / The current lighthouse
caption_attribution_description: English: St Bees Foghorn
context_page_description: St Bees Lighthouse is a lighthouse located on St Bees Head near the village of St Bees in Cumbria, England.
context_section_description: The foundation stone of the current tower was laid in a ceremony on 10 May 1865, with construction by builder John Glaister of Whitehaven.   Civil engineer Henry Norris supervised the construction as resident engineer on behalf of Trinity House.  Beneath the foundation stone a zinc box was laid containing a dated scroll signed by Henry Norris & John Glaister as well as by the others present at ceremony together with newspapers and coins of the realm.
  The tower is 17 metres (56 ft) high and stands an average of 102 metres (335 ft) above sea level. It  was built of local sandstone topped by a lantern that was originally destined for Gibraltar  It was provided with a large (first-order) catadioptric optic, supplied by Chance Brothers & Co., with a single lamp, supplied by Messrs. W. Wilkins & Co. of Long Acre. The optic included a 'dioptric mirror' (i.e. a set of double-reflecting prisms) which redirected light from the landward side of the lamp back out to sea.
  The new lighthouse was still under construction in late November 1866 when Henry Norris was sued by a painter in court in Whitehaven who had not been paid for lettering a notice board at the lighthouse; but it was operational by the end of the year. By the 1890s it was displaying a group-occulting light, on the following pattern: visible for 24 seconds, eclipsed for 2 seconds, visible for 2 seconds, eclipsed for 2 seconds; the light could be seen up to 24 nautical miles (44 km; 28 mi) out to sea.
  From 1913 an explosive fog signal was sounded from the lighthouse; it remained operational into the second half of the century. In the interwar period the lighthouse was used as a turning marker in the London to Isle of Man air races. During World War II the local Home Guard used it to practise defence/attack strategies although there is no record of ammunition being fired at it. The light was electrified in the mid-1950s. In the early 1960s a triple-frequency Tannoy electric fog signal was provided, in a detached building very close to the edge of the cliff.
  In 1987 the light was fully electrified, giving a beam of 134,000 candela which can be seen 18 nmi (33 km) away. It was also de-manned and automated at this time: the light was then one of five to be remotely monitored from the Trinity House depot at Holyhead. In 1999 the light was further modernised, after which it was monitored from the Trinity House Planning Centre in Harwich. It flashes twice every 20 seconds. The fog signal has been discontinued; it used to sound two blasts every 45 seconds.
caption: St Bees Fog Signal House on the cliff edge
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