Dungeness Lighthouse

Dungeness Lighthouse on the Dungeness Headland started operation on 20 November 1961. Its construction was prompted by the building of Dungeness nuclear power station, which obscured the light of its predecessor (dating from 1904) which, though decommissioned, remains standing. The new lighthouse (the fifth on the site) is constructed of precast concrete rings; its pattern of black and white bands is impregnated into the concrete. It remains in use today, monitored and controlled from the Trinity House Operations and Planning Centre at Harwich, Essex.

In all there have been eight lighthouses at Dungeness: five main (or 'high') lights (of which the fifth is still fully operational today), and three subsidiary (or 'low') lights. The addition of a subsidiary light became necessary owing to the constant accretion of shingle on the east side of the spit (an ongoing problem on this cuspate foreland), which gradually leaves each lighthouse at an ever-increasing distance from the sea on that side. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Dungeness was used as an experimental station by Trinity House; in the 1860s it was the first of their lighthouses to be equipped with a fog horn and the first to be given a permanent (if short-lived) electric lamp.

At first only a beacon was used to warn sailors, but this was replaced by a proper lighthouse in 1615. As the sea retreated, this had to be replaced in 1635 by a new lighthouse nearer to the water's edge known as Lamplough's Tower.

As more shingle was thrown up, a new and more up-to-date lighthouse was built near the sea in 1792 by Samuel Wyatt for Thomas William Coke (who held the patent for the lighthouse whereby and he received the dues and had responsibility for maintaining the light). This lighthouse was about 35 m (115 ft) high and of the same design as the third Eddystone Lighthouse. It was lit using a fixed array of eighteen Argand lamps and parabolic reflectors.

In 1837 the Corporation of Trinity House purchased the remaining portion of the lease for the sum of £20,954. Not long afterwards, in 1843, they built the lighthouse keepers' dwellings encircling the base of the tower. The tower was painted red to make it more visible in daylight; from 1865 it had alternating red and white horizontal bands. In September 1866, red sectors were added to the main light, to indicate anchorages in the bays to either side of Dungeness Point.

In the early 1860s, Dungeness was chosen by Michael Faraday (scientific adviser to Trinity House) to be the first lighthouse to receive a permanent electric light installation. (One had previously been installed at South Foreland Lighthouse, but only on a temporary and experimental basis.) Two carbon arc lamps were installed (one as a standby), each placed within a small (sixth-order) lens, provided by Chance & Co., backed by a silvered reflector. They were placed above the oil lamps and reflectors, which were retained as an emergency backup. The Holmes magneto-electric machines from South Foreland were installed in a room at the base of the tower, along with their steam engines and other equipment, and the new light came into operation on 1 February 1862. Unfortunately it did not prove as reliable or economical as might have been hoped: the engines regularly broke down (leading to the oil lamps being brought into use on multiple occasions); and due to the small size of the optic, sparking from the arc lamp damaged the lenses and eventually rendered them unusable. They were eventually replaced with a larger, third-order lens (which had been built by Chance for the 1867 Paris Exhibition, and subsequently used for experiments at Blackwall).

In 1865, an official Trinity House review of the electrical installation at Dungeness conceded that 'the results have not been commensurate with the cost'. Nevertheless, the Elder Brethren maintained that electricity 'may still become a most valuable element in lighthouse illumination in some few special cases; but to enable it to become so, or to give a fair estimate of its powers, it must be exhibited under entirely changed conditions from those which now exist'. Lessons learned from the difficulties with electric light at Dungeness led to far more reliable systems being installed in 1871 at Souter Point (the first purpose-built electrically lit lighthouse) and in 1872 at South Foreland. Costs were also progressively reduced: the operating cost per unit of light of the electric system installed at the Lizard Lighthouses in 1874 was one ninth that of Dungeness.

Later the electric light at Dungeness began to function more reliably; but one problem had emerged which was not easily solved: the relatively low level of the tower in relation to the sea meant that ships' crews were dazzled by the intense light, especially when sailing close to shore. The progressive accretion of shingle to the spit only exacerbated the problem, which is what ultimately led to the electric installation being decommissioned. The carbon arc lamp remained in use at Dungeness until 1 October 1875, when the lighthouse was instead fitted with a multi-wick oil lamp together with a new fixed first order Fresnel lens. (The lens was designed so that light from the landward side (which would otherwise be wasted) was reflected through condensing prisms to intensify the red-coloured sectors.) These changes coincided with the commissioning of a new 'Low Lighthouse' (see below), designed to supplement the 'High' Lighthouse (the sea having receded from its position).