The Eddystone Lighthouse is Swept Away

Twelve miles south-southwest of Plymouth Sound the Eddystone Rocks lurk beneath the sea, waiting to tear the hull of any ship unfortunate enough to pass too close. So feared were these treacherous rocks that it was many years before anyone was able to come up with a realistic way of making them safer. However, English engineer Henry Winstanley was a man who loved a challenge and he was sure that he could take on the rocks and win, creating a fanciful, ornamental lighthouse. For a time his vision proved correct; the Eddystone Lighthouse would be a towering achievement and, ultimately, the death of him.

Winstanley saw the Eddystone Rocks as the ultimate challenge for his engineering skills and spent many years developing the plans for the lighthouse that would eventually be placed there. Construction on the octagonal wooden structure began in 1696 and was delayed when Winstanley was abducted by French privateers and the foundations of the lighthouse destroyed, leading Louis XIV to order his immediate release. Unbowed, the engineer returned to his project and the light was lit for the first time on 14th November 1698, a beacon for sailors in these most treacherous waters. After less than a year the structure was in need of repairs and Winstanley had the exterior reshaped and clad with stone to enforce it; this time, the lighthouse was hopefully built to last.

Henry Winstanley, Self Portrait

Winstanley's lighthouse stood on the rocks for five years with its designer making regular visits to check the structure and carry out repairs. So confident was he in his masterwork that he commented how much he would like to be in the lighthouse when the greatest storm ever known struck it.

As fate would have it Winstanley was at the lighthouse on 27th November 1703 when the Great Storm of 1703 swept in from the Channel, bringing with it tragedy and devastation. Every trace of the magnificent lighthouse was obliterated beneath the onslaught of wind and wave and with it Winstanley and the five-strong crew were lost without trace. 

In the time the lighthouse stood on the Eddystone Rocks not one single ship was wrecked and now, with no flame to guide the way, sailors once again faced the danger that lurked beneath the waves. It would be five more years before another light burned on the Eddystone Rocks, the fate of the first Eddystone lighthouse and the man who build it passing into history.

The Great Storm of 1703

As the nights draw in and winter is upon us, my thoughts turn to matters of weather. From my window I can see the bonfires of Covent Garden and with the shutters drawn tight one can hear the hurrying footsteps of those looking for shelter from the cold, yet this is nothing compared to the cataclysmic weather conditions that struck Britain in November 1703. A little breeze is one thing but the Great Storm of 1703 was catastrophic; thousands died from pauper to bishop and the damage was immense. Southern England has seen nothing like it since and we hope never will again.

The Bishop's Palace, Wells

The storm came in from the English Channel and made landfall on 24th November, hitting the densely-populated capital in the following days and and raging across the country into the first week of December.  As the hurricane-force winds swept across London the people fled the streets in terror, seeking shelter from chimneys and roof leading as it crashed down to earth. The queen herself was forced to take refuge in the cellars of St James's Palace as the chimneys shook and crumbled and in Wells, Bishop Richard Kidder and his wife were crushed in their bed at the palace by falling chimney stacks. Britons regarded the ferocity of the weather with disbelief, believing it to be a physical manifestation of the wrath of God, the Almighty punishing a nation for its sins.

As you can read elsewhere on the site, the Eddystone Lighthouse was completely destroyed and numerous ships were sunk in the calamity, resulting in the loss of thousands of lives. In fact, many vessels were returning from the War of Spanish Succession and they sailed straight into the storm to be capsized and smashed into matchwood, their crews lost. On land people were crushed beneath masonry and thousands of trees fell to the furious gales, whilst still more humans and cattle too were drowned when rivers swelled and burst their banks, sweeping raging waters across low-lying lands.

Daniel Defoe witnessed the hurricane from his home in London and it inspired him to write The Storm in 1704, chronicling his experiences and the tragedy the gales had wrought. The government declared a day of national fasting to honour the dead and atone for the sins of the nation and slowly, surely, England began to count the vast cost of the Great Storm.