The red rocks of Eddystone.
Publisher: Longmans
Published: 1959
Place of publication: [London]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 215
Subjects: Eddystone Lighthouse (England)
First sentence: Fourteen miles to the south-west of Plymouth astride the approach to its great harbour, the fairway of the English Channel is broken by a triple reef. The rust-red rocks of which it is composed are a rare form of granitoid gneiss found in only one other area of the British Isles, at Prawle Point twenty-seven miles away: an indication that in the remote pre-Cambrian past the reef was joined to the mainland.
Description: Describes the building of the first rock light house in Britian - from Winstanley's first tower (1698) to the Douglass tower (1888) that is still standing today. Describes in detail the actual building and engineering processes and other related facts such as the discovery of lead poisoning, quick drying cement and the introduction of 'unionism'. A great mixture of fact and story
Table of contents: title: Ancient Lights
label: 1; title: The Beginnings
label: 2; title: Plymouth Insists
label: 3; title: 'My Lord Porter'
label: 4; title: Winstanley's Tower
label: 5; title: The Great Storm
label: 6; title: Wonder and Waterworks
label: 7; title: A New Approach
label: 8; title: Rudyerd's Tower
label: 9; title: Birth of a Tradition
label: 10; title: A Night in December
label: 11; title: A Man Named Smeaton
label: 12; title: Dovetails and Tree-Trunks
label: 13; title: The Unapproachable Reef
label: 14; title: Preparations Completed
label: 15; title: First Working Season
label: 16; title: Second Working Season
label: 17; title: Third and Fourth Working Seasons
label: 18; title: New Developments
label: 19; title: A Dream Fulfilled
label: 20; title: Lantern Gallery, Midnight
label: 21