St Mary's Lighthouse is on the tiny St Mary's (or Bait) Island, just north of

Whitley Bay Whitley Bay is a seaside town in the North Tyneside borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It was formerly governed as part of Northumberland and has been part of Tyne and Wear since 1974. It is part of the wider Tyneside built-up area, being around ...

on the coast of

North East England North East England, commonly referred to simply as the North East within England, is one of nine official regions of England. It consists of County DurhamNorthumberland, , Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and part of northern North Yorkshire. ...

. The small rocky

tidal island A tidal island is a raised area of land within a waterbody, which is connected to the larger mainland by a natural isthmus or man-made causeway that is exposed at low tide and submerged at high tide, causing the land to switch between being ...

is linked to the mainland by a short concrete causeway which is submerged at high tide.

History

The first light in the area was in Tynemouth Priory - an 11th-century monastic chapel, whose monks maintained a lantern on the tower to warn passing ships of the danger of the rocks. A lighthouse was built on the site of the current Tynemouth Coastguard station in 1664 using stone from the priory. This lighthouse was demolished when the new lighthouse and adjacent keepers' cottages were built in 1898 on St Mary's Island by the John Miller company of

Tynemouth Tynemouth () is a coastal town in the metropolitan borough of North Tyneside, in Tyne and Wear, England. It is located on the north side of the mouth of the River Tyne, England, River Tyne, hence its name. It is east-northeast of Newcastle up ...

, using 645 blocks of stone and 750,000 bricks. A first-order 'bi-valve' rotating

optic Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultravio ...

was installed by Barbier & Bénard of Paris, very similar to the one they had provided the previous year for

Lundy North Lighthouse The isle of Lundy has three lighthouses: a pair of active lights built in 1897 and a preserved older lighthouse dating from 1819. The old lighthouse (together with the adjacent keepers' accommodation) is a Grade II* listed building and the tower ...

; it displayed a group-flashing characteristic, flashing twice every 20 seconds. The lamp was powered by paraffin, and was not electrified until 1977; St Mary's was by then the last Trinity House lighthouse lit by oil. As part of the electrification process the fine first-order

fresnel lens A Fresnel lens ( ; ; or ) is a type of composite compact lens (optics), lens which reduces the amount of material required compared to a conventional lens by dividing the lens into a set of concentric annular sections. The simpler Dioptrics, d ...

was removed by

Trinity House The Corporation of Trinity House of Deptford Strond, also known as Trinity House (and formally as The Master, Wardens and Assistants of the Guild Fraternity or Brotherhood of the most glorious and undivided Trinity and of St Clement in the ...

(it was later put on display in their

National Lighthouse Museum National Lighthouse Museum may refer to: * National Lighthouse Museum (New York City), New York, United States * National Lighthouse Museum, Pohang, South Korea * Trinity House National Lighthouse Museum, a defunct museum in Penzance, England ...

Penzance Penzance ( ; ) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is the westernmost major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situated in the ...

). Its place in the tower was taken by a four-tier revolving

sealed beam A parabolic aluminized reflector lamp (PAR lamp or simply PAR) is a type of electric lamp that is widely used in commercial, residential, and transportation illumination. It produces a highly directional beam. Usage includes theatrical lighti ...

lamp array, manufactured by Pharos Marine; it was powered by two 12-volt batteries, charged from the

mains electricity Mains electricity, utility power, grid power, domestic power, wall power, household current, or, in some parts of Canada, hydro, is a general-purpose Alternating current, alternating-current (AC) electric power supply. It is the form of electri ...

supply.

Decommissioning

The lighthouse was decommissioned in 1984 (two years after its conversion to automatic operation). The revolving sealed beam array was reused two years later (in reduced form) on the Inner Dowsing light platform in the North Sea, as part of its conversion to become 'the first major lighthouse to be run using solar power'. In 1986 a blue plaque was created to record its early history. A few years later, St Mary's was opened as a visitor attraction by the local council. In place of the original optic, Trinity House offered a smaller one from their decommissioned lighthouse at

Withernsea Withernsea is a seaside resort town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Holderness, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Its white inland lighthouse, rising around above Hull Road, now houses a museum to 1950s actress Kay Kendall, wh ...

, and this can still be seen at the top of the tower. Following closure of the Penzance lighthouse museum, the original lens was returned to St Mary's in 2011 to be put on display.

The lighthouse today

Since 2012 St Mary's lighthouse has been

grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

. While it no longer functions as a working lighthouse, it is easily accessible (when the tide is out) and regularly open to visitors; in addition to the lighthouse itself there is a small museum, a visitor's centre, and a café. The cottage was upgraded with a wood pellet boiler in 2014. In 2017 a renovation plan for the site (including roof-top viewing platforms and various glass-covered extensions) was rejected by the local planning authority due to environmental concerns. A new refurbishment proposal (to include rebuilding the original optic) was presented in 2018; however the

Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

later turned down

North Tyneside Council North Tyneside Council, or North Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council, is the Local Government in England, local authority for the metropolitan borough of North Tyneside in Tyne and Wear, England. It is a metropolitan borough council and provid ...

's £2.1m funding application. In 2024 the lighthouse and keepers' cottages were repainted and general repairs were carried out.

Other nearby lighthouses

Another Victorian lighthouse may be found a few miles to the south of the

River Tyne The River Tyne is a river in North East England. Its length (excluding tributaries) is . It is formed by the North Tyne and the South Tyne, which converge at Warden, Northumberland, Warden near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The ...

Souter Lighthouse Souter Lighthouse is a lighthouse located to the North of Whitburn, South Tyneside, England. (It was generally known as Souter Point Lighthouse when in service). Souter Point was the first lighthouse in the world to be actually designed and bu ...

is also now decommissioned, and open to visitors (it can be seen with the naked eye from the top of St Mary's Lighthouse).Personal observation Pierhead lighthouses at

and

South Shields South Shields () is a coastal town in South Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England; it is on the south bank of the mouth of the River Tyne. The town was once known in Roman Britain, Roman times as ''Arbeia'' and as ''Caer Urfa'' by the Early Middle Ag ...

mark the entrance to the River Tyne. To the north, Trinity House maintains two operational lighthouses on the

Farne Islands The Farne Islands are a group of islands off the coast of Northumberland, England. The group has between 15 and 20 islands depending on the level of the tide.

References

External links