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Henry Winstanley and the Eddystone Lighthouse
Libro usado en buenas condiciones, por su antiguedad podria contener señales normales de uso
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First published January 1, 1980
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 8, 2018
What manner of creatures may be those
That build upon the sea?
The Eddystone rocks are a dangerous set of reefs that have sunk many a ship trying to enter the English Channel. During high tide, the rocks are covered. It became such a problem that when Henry Winstanley's own ship went down with all hands in the late 17th-century, he decided to do something about it.
Winstanley was a man way ahead of his time. Self-made, he was a builder and inventor, so he considered the almost insurmountable task of building a warning light atop the frequently submerged reef to be something that would enhance his reputation.
For all his looks that are so stout,
And his speeches brave and fair,
He may wait on the wind, wait on the wave,
But he'll build no lighthouse there.
Without the tools we currently have, it took him years to get something started (just drilling into the rock took forever) and the first light was lit in 1698. This was a warning beacon shaped like a tour-de-force.
The 'lighthouse that couldn't be built' was a success, until the great Storm of 1703.
Winstanley had rowed out to the lighthouse just as the storm was getting going, against the advice of the fishermen who warned him no good could come of it.
One hundred feet, the rising seas ascend!
Can mortal works, such mighty powers withstand?
Oh Winstanley! why thus presumptuous try
To equal powers that have their strength on high?
The Great Storm of 1703 killed thousands of humans and animals. Ships sank with at least 1,500 sailors drowned (many within anchorage of safe harbours). When the sun rose the next day and the fishermen looked to sea, the famous Eddystone Lighthouse was gone, with just a stump showing. Henry Winstanley and his five workers were never seen again.
In wat'ry tomb the Architect expires,
And dies unseen: - to silent Death retires.
The effect of the beacon's loss and its occupants was immediate. The Winchelsea, arriving battered but sailable from its West Indies voyage, slammed into the reefs and sank with all hands.
This is a fairly short book which made the reading move along quickly. However, it's more than just a story about Henry Winstanley and his works. The author takes time to highlight other subjects, such as Charles II's mistresses, the ancient Pharos Lighthouse, the Glorious Revolution, Louis XIV, and the advent of the English Coffee-House. You won't be bored.
Book Season = Winter (tempests rage)
That build upon the sea?
The Eddystone rocks are a dangerous set of reefs that have sunk many a ship trying to enter the English Channel. During high tide, the rocks are covered. It became such a problem that when Henry Winstanley's own ship went down with all hands in the late 17th-century, he decided to do something about it.
Winstanley was a man way ahead of his time. Self-made, he was a builder and inventor, so he considered the almost insurmountable task of building a warning light atop the frequently submerged reef to be something that would enhance his reputation.
For all his looks that are so stout,
And his speeches brave and fair,
He may wait on the wind, wait on the wave,
But he'll build no lighthouse there.
Without the tools we currently have, it took him years to get something started (just drilling into the rock took forever) and the first light was lit in 1698. This was a warning beacon shaped like a tour-de-force.
The 'lighthouse that couldn't be built' was a success, until the great Storm of 1703.
Winstanley had rowed out to the lighthouse just as the storm was getting going, against the advice of the fishermen who warned him no good could come of it.
One hundred feet, the rising seas ascend!
Can mortal works, such mighty powers withstand?
Oh Winstanley! why thus presumptuous try
To equal powers that have their strength on high?
The Great Storm of 1703 killed thousands of humans and animals. Ships sank with at least 1,500 sailors drowned (many within anchorage of safe harbours). When the sun rose the next day and the fishermen looked to sea, the famous Eddystone Lighthouse was gone, with just a stump showing. Henry Winstanley and his five workers were never seen again.
In wat'ry tomb the Architect expires,
And dies unseen: - to silent Death retires.
The effect of the beacon's loss and its occupants was immediate. The Winchelsea, arriving battered but sailable from its West Indies voyage, slammed into the reefs and sank with all hands.
This is a fairly short book which made the reading move along quickly. However, it's more than just a story about Henry Winstanley and his works. The author takes time to highlight other subjects, such as Charles II's mistresses, the ancient Pharos Lighthouse, the Glorious Revolution, Louis XIV, and the advent of the English Coffee-House. You won't be bored.
Book Season = Winter (tempests rage)
May 25, 2026
Do you remember Adam Hart Davis? He was that jolly, teacherish fellow who made documentaries about Victorians, old engineering and Victorian engineering. Here he goes a little further back, to the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to talk about Stuart engineering, and it’s a fascinating story.
All I had previously known about Henry Winstanley was from Daniel Defoe’s The Storm, that he was the builder of a lighthouse who was washed away with it during the great storm of 1703. It turns out that he did a few other things, and those things show him to be the forerunner of a very eighteenth century figure, the man of projects.
Born in Saffron Walden to a steward of Audley End, he became a porter at that royal palace and rose to become a clerk of works, where he made improvements to the building. He also moonlighted, creating additions to his family church (including a lantern and clock). He taught himself engraving and created a series of pictures of Audley End and his house on the road between it and London, a place called ‘The House of Wonders’, where he showcased automata and other engineering marvels. He also took a show to London, his water theatre, which included a trick barrel that could pour multiple different drinks. This water theatre was a going concern right into the eighteenth century. He also sold merchandise at his House of Wonders, including a set of cards he’d designed with educational facts about different countries round the world. (I don’t know if he sold this there, but I was delighted that his uncle was the original creator of Poor Robin’s Almanac, one of the targets of The Grub Street Journal.
Getting into shipping, he was devastated when a number of his ships were wrecked on the Eddystone, a slightly submerged, jutting group of rocks just outside Plymouth. This vicious obstacle had sunk many ships in the past and a petition to build a lighthouse had long been granted. It was up to Trinity House (a governor if which was Samuel Pepys) to get this lighthouse built but they couldn’t find anyone to do it. Unlike past lighthouses, the Eddystone lighthouse would have to be built onto one of the jutting rocks, 6 hours rowing from the port, with barely any land to tether it. It would take a very self-confident (possible foolish) person to build it. Winstanley was that man.
It took four years to build. In the first year, all Winstanley and his team managed to do was dig twelve holes in the rock and insert metal rods. The problem was, that even after the 6 hours row, there’d be no way of getting onto the rock or offloading equipment if the sea was even slightly choppy.
A further complication was that Britain was at war with France. The workers were guarded by The Terror, until it went to chase some Frenchies, leaving them exposed. The rock was invaded by a French privateer, the workers stripped naked and Winstanley taken prisoner. He was later returned by Louis XIV who said that he was “at war with the English, not humanity”. Work continued.
In 1698 the lamps were lit. There were definitely some frightening times for the family maintaining the light during the first winter but it stayed up. Winstanley went to check on it, beefing the building up, making it stouter and more comfortable. Despite being a rather overdecorated, whimsical-looking building, it performed its task well and not a single ship was lost to the rocks. There was a sea-shanty written about the keeper of the Eddystone Light marrying a mermaid, and Winstanley was celebrated for his ingenuousness and tenacity.
Winstanley would check it every now and then, patching up weathered parts and making little modifications. He decided to go and do that on the eve of the Great Storm of 1703. It really was a big storm, felling trees, blowing down spires and chimney stacks, rolling the lead of church roofs like icing and - in the morning - there was no trace of Winstanley or his lighthouse.
It’s a great story and Hart-Davis (and co-writer Emily Toscianko, who now has a very interesting-looking body of work about philosophy of exercise) tell it well. What is clear, is that there wasn’t enough detail about Winstanley or his lighthouse for a very long book. This is a generously spaced 200 pages and it frequently goes on little detours which don’t necessarily add to the story. A potted history of Captain Morgan’s privateering adventures didn’t have much to do with the story, nor the details of the private lives of Charles II or William of Orange. Even the discussion of lighthouses themselves, going back to the Pharos of Alexandria, was little but filler, if interesting filler.
Given the sparse nature of the information, the hints of Winstanley as an interesting and engaging character, and the sheer drama of him swept away with his most famous creation, this would make a fun film. I can picture him cackling and taunting the storm as it batters the lighthouse before pulling him away into the murky waters. Someone get on that.
All I had previously known about Henry Winstanley was from Daniel Defoe’s The Storm, that he was the builder of a lighthouse who was washed away with it during the great storm of 1703. It turns out that he did a few other things, and those things show him to be the forerunner of a very eighteenth century figure, the man of projects.
Born in Saffron Walden to a steward of Audley End, he became a porter at that royal palace and rose to become a clerk of works, where he made improvements to the building. He also moonlighted, creating additions to his family church (including a lantern and clock). He taught himself engraving and created a series of pictures of Audley End and his house on the road between it and London, a place called ‘The House of Wonders’, where he showcased automata and other engineering marvels. He also took a show to London, his water theatre, which included a trick barrel that could pour multiple different drinks. This water theatre was a going concern right into the eighteenth century. He also sold merchandise at his House of Wonders, including a set of cards he’d designed with educational facts about different countries round the world. (I don’t know if he sold this there, but I was delighted that his uncle was the original creator of Poor Robin’s Almanac, one of the targets of The Grub Street Journal.
Getting into shipping, he was devastated when a number of his ships were wrecked on the Eddystone, a slightly submerged, jutting group of rocks just outside Plymouth. This vicious obstacle had sunk many ships in the past and a petition to build a lighthouse had long been granted. It was up to Trinity House (a governor if which was Samuel Pepys) to get this lighthouse built but they couldn’t find anyone to do it. Unlike past lighthouses, the Eddystone lighthouse would have to be built onto one of the jutting rocks, 6 hours rowing from the port, with barely any land to tether it. It would take a very self-confident (possible foolish) person to build it. Winstanley was that man.
It took four years to build. In the first year, all Winstanley and his team managed to do was dig twelve holes in the rock and insert metal rods. The problem was, that even after the 6 hours row, there’d be no way of getting onto the rock or offloading equipment if the sea was even slightly choppy.
A further complication was that Britain was at war with France. The workers were guarded by The Terror, until it went to chase some Frenchies, leaving them exposed. The rock was invaded by a French privateer, the workers stripped naked and Winstanley taken prisoner. He was later returned by Louis XIV who said that he was “at war with the English, not humanity”. Work continued.
In 1698 the lamps were lit. There were definitely some frightening times for the family maintaining the light during the first winter but it stayed up. Winstanley went to check on it, beefing the building up, making it stouter and more comfortable. Despite being a rather overdecorated, whimsical-looking building, it performed its task well and not a single ship was lost to the rocks. There was a sea-shanty written about the keeper of the Eddystone Light marrying a mermaid, and Winstanley was celebrated for his ingenuousness and tenacity.
Winstanley would check it every now and then, patching up weathered parts and making little modifications. He decided to go and do that on the eve of the Great Storm of 1703. It really was a big storm, felling trees, blowing down spires and chimney stacks, rolling the lead of church roofs like icing and - in the morning - there was no trace of Winstanley or his lighthouse.
It’s a great story and Hart-Davis (and co-writer Emily Toscianko, who now has a very interesting-looking body of work about philosophy of exercise) tell it well. What is clear, is that there wasn’t enough detail about Winstanley or his lighthouse for a very long book. This is a generously spaced 200 pages and it frequently goes on little detours which don’t necessarily add to the story. A potted history of Captain Morgan’s privateering adventures didn’t have much to do with the story, nor the details of the private lives of Charles II or William of Orange. Even the discussion of lighthouses themselves, going back to the Pharos of Alexandria, was little but filler, if interesting filler.
Given the sparse nature of the information, the hints of Winstanley as an interesting and engaging character, and the sheer drama of him swept away with his most famous creation, this would make a fun film. I can picture him cackling and taunting the storm as it batters the lighthouse before pulling him away into the murky waters. Someone get on that.
March 21, 2021
Interesting portrait of the guy (with a big ego) who built the first wave swept lighthouse. Not a lot of thought put into safety or practicality. Neat details of his life, relationship with the king, and other inventions/ideas, though
September 9, 2021
I like short history books. Enjoyable read, this one, but couldn’t quite give it 4 stars.
October 31, 2023
This was a great little book about the making of a lighthouse off the coast of England in the late 17th century. The writers do an excellent job of balancing their main story of Henry Winstanley building his lighthouse with many background stories, from King Charles II to the history of lighthouses to the day to day life in the remote parts of southern England during that time. And the book has a wallop of an ending that I wouldn’t want to spoil future readers. Good stuff!
May 3, 2019
This book is a biography of Henry Winstanley, the man whose life (and death) became intractably linked with the first Eddystone Lighthouse.
The Eddystone rocks – an outcrop of slippery, sloping gneiss that barely pokes above sea level, even at low tide – have claimed thousands of lives. When Winstanley, already an accomplished architect, lost a ship of his own and decided to build a lighthouse, everyone thought he was mad. And perhaps he was: the rocks are 14 miles south of Plymouth – a six-hour haul (by rowing boat) in each direction – and they experience such bad weather, the workmen often had to turn back without even being able to land. It took two months just to pick-axe the anchor holes (after which they had to break for winter). Construction took two and a half years in total.
This books explores not only the rocks, the lighthouse, and Winstanley’s life, but also England’s political and social background of the events leading up to the calamitous storm of November 1703.
I enjoyed the writing – the book was easy to read, and the descriptions of the lighthouse’s construction fascinating. There was one jarring section (presumably written by Troscianko), which included the line “Adam should know because he has done it,” and this came out of the blue in an otherwise non-personal narrative.
This was an engaging book, packed full of a wide range of information. I enjoyed it.
The Eddystone rocks – an outcrop of slippery, sloping gneiss that barely pokes above sea level, even at low tide – have claimed thousands of lives. When Winstanley, already an accomplished architect, lost a ship of his own and decided to build a lighthouse, everyone thought he was mad. And perhaps he was: the rocks are 14 miles south of Plymouth – a six-hour haul (by rowing boat) in each direction – and they experience such bad weather, the workmen often had to turn back without even being able to land. It took two months just to pick-axe the anchor holes (after which they had to break for winter). Construction took two and a half years in total.
This books explores not only the rocks, the lighthouse, and Winstanley’s life, but also England’s political and social background of the events leading up to the calamitous storm of November 1703.
I enjoyed the writing – the book was easy to read, and the descriptions of the lighthouse’s construction fascinating. There was one jarring section (presumably written by Troscianko), which included the line “Adam should know because he has done it,” and this came out of the blue in an otherwise non-personal narrative.
This was an engaging book, packed full of a wide range of information. I enjoyed it.
January 1, 2013
A nicely told story of a slightly obscure but colourful character. The main theme of the book is the building of the first lighthouse at Eddystone. That in itself was a sterling achievement. The image of the first workers chipping into the rock, an inch at time, miles from the shore, with the tide ever rising is a powerful one. When they finally, after so many months, get as far as putting in iron bars ( as tall as a man and as thick as his arm) you begin to take in the immensity of what was done. And of course, the subsequent completion of the lighthouse with all its strange additions are great fun.
But for me I loved all the descriptions of Winstanley's "other life" as, effectively, a showman. Who knew about the fun house? I so wanted to try the amazing machine that would serve multiple drinks from the same spout, as if by magic, see the waterworks, experience the rides.
Blow the lighthouse. I think a seventeenth century theme park is in order.
Read it. It's fab.
But for me I loved all the descriptions of Winstanley's "other life" as, effectively, a showman. Who knew about the fun house? I so wanted to try the amazing machine that would serve multiple drinks from the same spout, as if by magic, see the waterworks, experience the rides.
Blow the lighthouse. I think a seventeenth century theme park is in order.
Read it. It's fab.
January 6, 2015
A delightfully written and thoroughly engaging slice of history.
Detailing one man's dogged determination to protect ships from a dangerous reef, this is the story of how perhaps the world's most famous lighthouse came into being.
He battles nature, politics, science and war to make a giant engineering leap forward and this book perfectly captures the spirit of adventure and essence of this adventure.
Detailing one man's dogged determination to protect ships from a dangerous reef, this is the story of how perhaps the world's most famous lighthouse came into being.
He battles nature, politics, science and war to make a giant engineering leap forward and this book perfectly captures the spirit of adventure and essence of this adventure.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews