Building record LWT 425 - Lowestoft Lighthouse

(TM55099430) Lowestoft High Lighthouse [NAT] (1)

Lowestoft Lighthouse. Established in the town by 1609 and by 1676 the present site was utilised. Present house built in 1874. (2)

Lowestoft High light house. TM552944 [sic]. Founded 1676, probably oldest site still in use in the country. (3)

The first lighthouse at Lowestoft is recorded in 1609, when proposals for two lighthouses at 'Lowestoft-ness' to guide seafarers through the Stanford Channel were executed by Trinity House. They were lit by candles. These lighthouses were rebuilt in 1628 and again in 1676, when a light was placed upon the cliff to aid shipping out at sea. The new High Lighthouse was then lit by coal. The Low Lighthouse was discontinued by 1706 owing to encroachment by the sea, but re-established in 1730 with a whale oil lamp.

Further developments in the High Lighthouse came with the advent of reflector lights in 1777 and Argand lights with silvered parabolic reflectors in 1796. It was decided to electrify the High Lighthouse in 1870, so a new lighthouse was required and buit in 1874, but was instead installed with the more economical paraffin lamps, with a revolving lens flashing at 30-second intervals. This present tower is 16m high.

The Low Lighthouse was finally defunct in 1923 while the High Lighthouse, which continues in use, was finally electrified in 1936 and automated in 1975. Its flash pattern is now every 15 seconds. (4)

Formerly known as High Lighthouse, High Street. Listed Grade II.

Site comprises Lighthouse and lighthouse keepers' house, now an automatic lighthouse and two houses, North and South Cottages.

The first light on the site was 1676, rebuilt 1853, and the whole rebuilt 1873. The lighthouse is of three storeys, circular, with a gallery at the lantern stage, which is glazed and surmounted with a weather vane.

The ancillary buildings are of stuccoed brick with slate roofs and are of two storeys, with a central three-bay hipped block flanked by gabled ranges on either side, enclosing the lighthouse tower. The central block has a central pediment above a blind ground floor window, above which is set the arms of Trinity House at first floor level. (5)