Berry Head Lighthouse is an active

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lens (optics), lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Ligh ...

, located at the end of

Berry Head Berry Head is a coastal headland that forms the southern boundary of Tor Bay in Devon, England. Lying to the east of the town of Brixham, it is a national nature reserve (United Kingdom), national nature reserve and a local nature reserve. Berr ...

near

Brixham Brixham is a coastal town and civil parish in the borough of Torbay in the county of Devon, in the south-west of England. As of the 2021 census, Brixham had a population of 16,825. It is one of the main three centres of the borough, along with ...

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

, which has been in operation since 4 May 1906.London Gazette, Issue: 27914, Page: 3490, 18 May 1906.
/ref> Berry Head is reputedly the shortest lighthouse in Great Britain, but also one of the highest, being only tall, but above mean sea level. It was also said to be the ''deepest'' because the optic was originally turned by a weight falling down a deep shaft.

History

The lighthouse was designed and built for

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 ...

by its chief engineer Thomas Matthews. When first lit, the

incandescent lamp An incandescent light bulb, also known as an incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe, is an electric light that produces illumination by Joule heating a filament until it glows. The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb that is eith ...

was fuelled by

oil gas Blau gas () is an artificial illuminating gas that is similar to propane. It was named after its inventor, Hermann Blau of Augsburg, Germany. Rarely used or produced today, it was manufactured by decomposing mineral oils in retorts by heat, and ...

(which was purchased from the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a History of rail transport in Great Britain, British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, ...

at Exeter and stored in large external tanks on site). The lamp was placed within a revolving third-order

dioptric Dioptrics is the branch of optics dealing with refraction, especially by lenses. In contrast, the branch dealing with mirrors is known as ''catoptrics''. Telescopes that create their image with an objective that is a convex lens ( refractors) are ...

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 ...

, which gave a double white flash every 15 seconds. It had a range of . Berry Head was classed as an unwatched light; it was managed by an attendant, who brought it into service each evening. In addition, the clockwork mechanism which turned the optic required regular winding. In 1921 the lighthouse was converted by the

AGA Aga or AGA may refer to: Business * Architectural Glass and Aluminum (AGA), a glazing contractor, established in 1970 * AGA (automobile), , 1920s German car company * AGA AB, , a Swedish company, the originator of the AGA cooker * AGA Rangemaster ...

company to run on

acetylene Acetylene (Chemical nomenclature, systematic name: ethyne) is a chemical compound with the formula and structure . It is a hydrocarbon and the simplest alkyne. This colorless gas is widely used as a fuel and a chemical building block. It is u ...

. A triple-cluster open-flame burner was installed, along with an acetylene-powered drive to turn the lens, and a Dalen

sun valve A sun valve (''Swedish: solventil'', "solar valve") is a flow control valve that automatically shuts off gas flow during daylight. It earned its inventor Gustaf Dalén the 1912 Nobel Prize in Physics. Subsequently other variants of sun valve were ...

(which automatically brought the light into operation when required). Since 1994 the lighthouse has run on mains electricity. In 2019 the optic and lamp were removed and replaced with a pair of self-contained

LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (corresp ...

lanterns (one serving as the main light, the other as a standby); the old characteristic was retained. The installation was the first application by Trinity House of its so-called 'simple lighthouse scheme', intended to be extended to all other shore-based mains-powered lighthouses, except those with more complex display requirements (e.g. provision of a sector light).

References

External links

Trinity House

{{authority control Lighthouses completed in 1906 Lighthouses in Devon Industrial archaeological sites in Devon 1906 establishments in England

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links