Rönnskär Lighthouse ( Finnish: ''Rönnskärin majakka'', Swedish: ''Rönnskär fyr'') is a decommissioned

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 south of the

Porkkalanniemi Porkkalanniemi (), often referred to simply as Porkkala (), is a peninsula in the Gulf of Finland, located at Kirkkonummi (Kyrkslätt) in Southern Finland. The peninsula had great strategic value, as coastal artillery based there would be abl ...

peninsula in the western section of the

Gulf of Finland The Gulf of Finland (; ; ; ) is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland to the north and Estonia to the south, to Saint Petersburg—the second largest city of Russia—to the east, where the river Neva drains into it. ...

. Completed in 1800 while Finland was still part of

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

, on the orders of King Gustaf IV Adolf, Rönnskär is one of the oldest extant lighthouses in Finland. It was, however, decommissioned in 1928, following the completion on the nearby islet of Kallbåda of the Porkkala Lighthouse (that is, Porkkala Kallbåda, as opposed to Porkkala Rönnskär, as this one is sometimes called). Since its decommissioning, Rönnskär has been used mostly as a communications and VTS radar and monitoring facility by the

Finnish Navy The Finnish Navy ( , ) is one of the branches of the Finnish Defence Forces. The navy employs 2,300 people and about 4,300 conscripts are trained each year. Finnish Navy vessels are given the ship prefix "FNS", short for "Finnish Navy ship", but ...

and

Coast Guard A coast guard or coastguard is a Maritime Security Regimes, maritime security organization of a particular country. The term embraces wide range of responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with cust ...

. The island is designated as military zone which is why there is no public access to the lighthouse. The construction consists of a square

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

base, topped by a round brick tower; the base is natural stone colour (grey), the main tower section painted white. The Rönnskär Lighthouse is part of a milieu designated and protected by the

Finnish Heritage Agency The Finnish Heritage Agency (, ), previously known in English as the National Board of Antiquities, preserves Finland's material cultural heritage: collects, studies and distributes knowledge of it. The agency is a cultural and research institutio ...

as a nationally important built cultural environment (''Valtakunnallisesti merkittävä rakennettu kulttuuriympäristö'').

References

{{Authority control Lighthouses in Finland Buildings and structures in Uusimaa Water transport in Finland Kirkkonummi Lighthouses completed in 1800