Eddystone Lighthouse

Devon, United Kingdom

Open to visitors

The interior is normally open, possibly ticketed.

Strollie cannot guarantee access — always check before you travel.

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The Eddystone Lighthouse, a stone structure completed in 1882 on the Eddystone Rocks nine miles south of Rame Head in Cornwall, England, is the fourth lighthouse to occupy this perilous site of submerged Precambrian gneiss. Designed by James Nicholas Douglass and standing 49 metres tall, it represents the culmination of three centuries of maritime engineering at the location. Its predecessors were marked by tragedy and innovation: Winstanley's lighthouse, completed in 1699 as the world's first open ocean lighthouse, was destroyed in a storm that killed its architect and five workers; Rudyard's structure burned after fifty years; and Smeaton's third tower, celebrated for its influence on lighthouse design and development of concrete as a building material, had its upper portions relocated to Plymouth as a monument. The current structure is recognized as a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.