The Red Rocks of Eddystone Trivia Quiz

Answer: A reef situated near Plymouth, England

The Eddystone Reef has been the cause of hundreds of shipwrecks over the years. It is situated about 14 miles off Plymouth, in South Devon. Because of where the Reef is situated, mariners have to pass it to get into the safety of Plymouth Sound, and the water is almost always rough with conflicting winds, tides and currents. No-one has any idea how ships have been broken on the Eddystone.

The rocks of the reef are, indeed, red because they are formed of a rare form of granitoid gneiss, found only in one other place in the British Isles, 27 miles away at Prawle Point. This rock is extremely hard and difficult to drill even with modern tools.

Answer: Lighthouses

There have been four lighthouses built on the reef, some more successful than others. If the weather is right you can actually see the current lighthouse from Plymouth Hoe, which is the name given to the sea front in Plymouth.

Having grown up in Plymouth, my earliest memories include looking over the sea trying to spot the lighthouse. One joke was that if you could see it, it would rain soon. If you couldn't see it, that was because it was already raining.
(They get a lot of rain in Plymouth!)

Answer: Henry Winstanley

Winstanley's lighthouse was built in 1698.

Henry Winstanley was somewhat of a showman and entrepreneur who owned a house at Littlebury in Essex that was a sort of fun house, filled with tricks and illusions. He charged the public one shilling to to see it. He made enough money to buy some ships, and sadly two of them were wrecked on the Eddystone within a few months of one another.

At this time, the Corporation of Trinity House were looking for someone to build a lighthouse, and Winstanley jumped at the chance. This was a man who was no architect or engineer, yet four years later, his lighthouse was built. Work could only take place in the summer and was subject to the tides and weather. Holes had to be drilled into the rock and iron stanchions fixed to hold the tower in place. It's almost impossible to imagine how hard and dangerous this work was. The granite stones for the base were quarried locally and shaped in Plymouth.

In 1697 Winstanley was kidnapped by a French privateer. Fortunately, Louis IV saw that the lighthouse was important to every seafarer no matter from which country, and Winstanley was released.

The light was lit in November 1698, but many defects were found with the building after a hard winter. In effect, the repairs constituted a whole new tower encasing the original one. It was also 40 feet taller. The superstructure was octagonal, built of wood and featured many extras such as a crane, None of it helped the lighthouse to throw off the effects of heavy seas, but of course Winstanley had no idea that the shape was not ideal.

Answer: It was destroyed in the Great Storm of 1703

Winstanley was so confident of the strength of his lighthouse that he would boast about it and say he wanted to be inside it in the greatest storm ever.

He could never have guessed that he would get his wish. The Great Storm of 1703, as recorded in the diary of Daniel Defoe, was the worst storm ever to hit the country. It was a tropical cyclone such as had never been seen before, and was particularly bad in the south west; hundreds of houses, churches and ships were damaged or destroyed. And by daylight on 27th November 1703 there was no sign of Winstanley's lighthouse, which had disappeared with the Keepers as well as Winstanley. It's believed that about 8000 sailors lost their lives, countless trees fell and more than 2000 chimneys fell in London alone.

Be careful what you wish for.

Answer: John Rudyerd

Rudyerd's lighthouse was built in 1708 and was a conical structure of wood around a core of stone and brick. Despite Rudyerd having no experience of building such a structure, it was almost as though he took a look at what Winstanley had built and decided to do the opposite. His tower looked very much the same as a modern one, with smooth tapering sides.

The structure was fastened to the rock by wrought iron bolts, and two master shipwrights sheathed it in planks, caulked like a ship. This tower was a lot less complicated in appearance than Winstanley's had been, and actually lasted for nearly 50 years. As with Winstanley's light, illumination was provided by candles, and in 1755 the lantern caught fire. The keepers tried to put out the fire but could not, and were eventually picked up by a boat and taken off.
One of the keepers, Henry Hall, who was aged 94, (really!) ingested molten lead from the roof and died a few days later. The actual lump of lead still exists and is in the National Museums of Scotland.

Poor man, what a way to go.

Answer: France

The French coast at the Bay of Biscay is plagued with bad weather and the area around the Gironde estuary is particularly open to the Atlantic. This made it hazardous for ships trying to get into port to load up with the wine grown in the area, and there is a huge area of stone about 7km offshore that is covered with water at high tide. There was a clear need of something to prevent ships being lost on the rocks, so in 1584 Henri III commissioned the building of a lighthouse.

The Tour de Cordouan was completed in 1611 and exists to this day, now open to visitors. It is enormous, and includes a lavish King's Apartment and a Chapel Royal. Rather over the top for a lighthouse, but the result is amazing.
This tower was built on the rocks out at sea, and it was the first lighthouse ever built offshore. The builders had an easier job than the builders of the Eddystone because there is a great deal more solid rock on which to build. It's really worth Googling for more information.

Answer: John Smeaton

The stone for Smeaton's tower was shaped in 1759 at Millbay, Plymouth, from Cornish granite, and its construction method was of dovetailed blocks with marble dowels. This is an incredibly strong kind of building and the tower remained in use until 1877. Modern lighthouses still use this construction method.

Of course during its lifetime it was renovated and improved, and in 1845 the candles were replaced by a multi wick oil lamp and an optic using prisms.

Answer: The underlying rock of the reef became unstable

In 1877 it was realised that the tower was no longer on firm foundations because the rock on which it sat had been undermined by the heavy seas.

Because of where it is situated, subject to tides and many currents as well as bad weather, the seas around the Eddystone Reef are rarely calm. By the time it was decided that the tower had to be replaced, it was possible to feel it shaking as it was hit by the waves. Deemed essential to the safety of mariners, a decision was quickly made to build a new lighthouse. The new tower was built on a different part of the reef.

Answer: Re-erected on Plymouth Hoe

One of the most prominent and famous landmarks in Devon is Smeaton's Tower, which has stood proudly on Plymouth Hoe since 1882. Now painted in red and white stripes, and not plain white as it was until the 1960s, it is the top two thirds of the original building. It is open to the public; it's quite a climb to the top. You can enter the lantern where the lights were and stand outside on the gallery for a wonderful view across to Cornwall and out to sea and inland.

The Hoe is an area of grass and picturesque paths that is Plymouth's sea front, and in 1588 is reputedly where Sir Francis Drake played bowls while awaiting news of the Spanish Armada. Whether or not this is true, the Hoe still boasts a bowling green which is well used.

You can still see the remaining stump of Smeaton's Tower on the Eddystone rocks, and it's visible some days to the naked eye from Plymouth Hoe.

Answer: Sir James Douglass

Sir James Douglass built many other lighthouses, including the Longships Lighthouse, Wolf Rock Lighthouse and Hartland Point Lighthouse; he was knighted for his work on the Eddystone. He based his design for the Eddystone on Smeaton's, which had been proved to be a strong method of construction.

His Eddystone tower is 49 meters high and was equipped with the most modern lights as well as two bells that hung from the lantern gallery for use as fog signals.

The tower still stands on the Eddystone Reef, but in 1982 it was fully automated, and was in fact the first Trinity House offshore lighthouse to be converted.

Since 1980 there has been a helicopter pad above the lantern, and since 1999 the lighthouse has been run on solar power. It still has fog horns and the light, which is white and visible for 22 miles, flashes twice every ten seconds.