Tater Du Lighthouse is

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

's most recently built lighthouse. The construction of the lighthouse came out of the tragedy of losing a small Spanish coaster called the ''Juan Ferrer'' on 23 October 1963, on the nearby Boscawen Point, the vessel capsized with the loss of 11 lives. After the tragedy the Newlyn and Mousehole Fishermen's Association put pressure on

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 ...

for a lighthouse to be built, stating that similar tragedies could happen again. The lighthouse, built with concrete blocks, was first lit in July 1965.

Description

The short building is topped by a 7-foot 1 inch lantern with an electric light which is powered from batteries which are charged from mains electricity during the day. The light is 3 white lights flashed every 15 seconds, with a range of . There is a separate red fixed light that shows in the line over the Runnelstone Rock, shone from a lower window in the tower. The lighthouse looks out over the Inner and Outer Bucks, two rocks that partially show at low water, and where in 1868 the SS ''Garonne'' was lost.

History

Designed by Michael H. Crisp, the lighthouse was constructed with a completely automatic installation which was remotely controlled from the Trinity House depot in

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 ...

. In 1997 the lighthouse was modernised and it is now monitored from the Trinity House Planning Centre at

Harwich Harwich is a town in Essex, England, and one of the Haven ports on the North Sea coast. It is in the Tendring district. Nearby places include Felixstowe to the north-east, Ipswich to the north-west, Colchester to the south-west and Clacton-o ...

. In May 2022, as part of Trinity House's lighthouse modernisation programme, the revolving optic was replaced with static LED lanterns. At the same time the light's visible range was reduced from to .

Fog signal

The fog signal was originally a series (72 in total) of Tannoy units built into the lighthouse tower; they were powered by an

alternator An alternator (or synchronous generator) is an electrical generator that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy in the form of alternating current. For reasons of cost and simplicity, most alternators use a rotating magnetic field wit ...

coupled to a 2-cylinder Ruston diesel engine. This was later replaced by a short-range Pharos Marine Omnidirectional electric emitter sounding the same characteristic of two one second blasts every 30 seconds during fog. The fog signal was decommissioned in 2012.

Surrounding area

The coastal slope and cliffs around the lighthouse are designated the Tater–du SSSI (a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

) notified in 1992 because ″... it provides unique evidence of the geological history of SW England during the

Variscan The Variscan orogeny, or Hercynian orogeny, was a geologic mountain-building event caused by Late Paleozoic continental collision between Euramerica (Laurussia) and Gondwana to form the supercontinent of Pangaea. Nomenclature The name ''Variscan ...

orogeny Orogeny () is a mountain-mountain formation, building process that takes place at a convergent boundary, convergent plate margin when plate motion compresses the margin. An or develops as the compressed plate crumples and is tectonic uplift, u ...

, in particular because of the occurrence of

pillow lavas Pillow lavas are lavas that contain characteristic pillow-shaped structures that are attributed to the extrusion of the lava underwater, or ''subaqueous extrusion''. Pillow lavas in volcanic rock are characterized by thick sequences of discontinu ...

.″ The cliffs are also a

Geological Conservation Review The Geological Conservation Review (GCR) is produced by the UK's Joint Nature Conservation Committee. It is designed to identify those sites of national and international importance needed to show all the key scientific elements of the geological ...

site. The nearby rocks (Inner and Outer Bucks) form a popular sub-aqua dive site. The nearest point for launching a dive-boat is Penzance, as Lamorna Cove just around the corner from The Bucks, does not allow launching from there.

Gallery

File:Tatterdoo lighthouse Lamorna Cornwall 2.jpg, A distant view of Tater Du Lighthouse File:Tatterdoo lighthouse Lamorna Cornwall.jpg, Tater Du Lighthouse File:Tater Du lighthouse - West Cornwall - geograph.org.uk - 46337.jpg, The coast at Tater Du File:The Tater Du Lighthouse - geograph.org.uk - 36548.jpg, The steep access road down to the lighthouse

References

External links

*
Tater Du Lighthouse at Trinity House
*
Pathé footage of Tater Du lighthouse interior/exterior at the time of the official opening in 1965
{{Authority control Lighthouses completed in 1965 Lighthouses in Cornwall Lighthouses of the English Channel Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Cornwall Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1992