Longships Lighthouse

In 1797, Trinity House granted a lease to Lieutenant Henry Smith and the architect Samuel Wyatt oversaw the building of the first lighthouse on Carn Bras, one of a group of rocky islets off Land's End. In 1875 Trinity House engineer Sir James Douglass installed a circular tower of grey granite. Longships Lighthouse was manned until 1967 but it was not until 1988 that the lighthouse was fully automated and run from Trinity House's Planning Centre in Harwich, Essex.

The number of ships lost off the coast of Cornwall is unknown but one of the earliest records dates back to 1532 and innumerable vessels have come to grief on rocks and reefs either from Atlantic winds and storms, in pea soup fog, heavy seas or through navigational mishap. Lighthouse keepers would be stationed for service and move from lighthouse to lighthouse, some came with accommodation while some posts saw them separated from their families for long shifts at sea on so-called rock lighthouses like Longships. English romanticist painter William Turner captured in watercolour Longships Lighthouse which is held in the Getty (Art Museum) in California.