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Seashaken Houses: A Lighthouse History from Eddystone to Fastnet
'A thrilling celebration of lighthouses' i newspaperAn enthralling history of Britain's rock lighthouses, and the people who built and inhabited themLighthouses are enduring monuments to our relationship with the sea. They encapsulate a romantic vision of solitary homes amongst the waves, but their original purpose was much more noble, conceived as navigational gifts for the safety of all. Still today, we depend upon their guiding lights for the safe passage of ships. Nowhere is this truer than in the rock lighthouses of Great Britain and twenty towers built between 1811 and 1904, so-called because they were constructed on desolate, slippery rock formations in the middle of the sea, rising, mirage-like, straight out of the waves, with lights shining at the their summits.Seashaken Houses is a lyrical exploration of these magnificent, isolated sentinels, the ingenuity of those who conceived them, the people who risked their lives building and rebuilding them, those that inhabited their circular rooms, and the ways in which we value emblems of our history in a changing world.
227 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 1, 2018
73 people are currently reading
1017 people want to read
About the author
Tom Nancollas
2 books19 followersBorn in Gloucester in 1988, Tom Nancollas is a writer and building conservationist based in London. After university, he joined English Heritage to work on church repair grants before moving on to the City of London and its historic townscape. Of Cornish ancestry, Tom maintained a love of seascapes during his work in the capital and became fascinated with offshore rock lighthouses, finding in them a new way of looking at buildings, heritage and, unexpectedly, family.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 103 reviews
January 16, 2019
A lyrical voyage of discovery...
If there’s one thing I love more than most things, it’s being told all about a subject I know nothing about by someone with an enthusiastic passion for it and the ability to write in a way that brings it to life. I knew nothing about the various rock lighthouses that stand as warnings to shipping around Britain’s shore, and I couldn’t have asked for a better guide to them than Tom Nancollas.
He starts with a brief introduction of himself – he is a building conservationist who chose to study rock lighthouses for his dissertation, giving him a lasting interest in the subject. Having regularly visited as a boy both the Wirral coastline and Cornwall, where his family originated, he tells us he grew up feeling an affinity for the sea and a fascination for all its many moods. For this book, he set out to visit seven of the major rock lighthouses, sometimes getting permission to land and see the interiors, other times examining them from the outside. Along the way, he tells us tales of their construction and history, of the men who built, lived in and maintained them over the years, and of the many shipwrecks they have doubtless averted and of some they didn’t. His style is non-academic, sometimes lyrical, always enthusiastic, and I found myself coming to share his fascination for these incredible feats of engineering and his admiration for those who built and worked on them.
He begins with Eddystone, off Plymouth, as a way of showing how what became the standard design for rock lighthouses developed. Eddystone has had four lighthouses over the centuries – the first rather whimsical structure unable to withstand its first storm, the second, a part timber building destroyed by fire. The third, built of interlocking stone blocks which provided the strength and stability required to stand up to the sea’s constant pounding, became the model for future lighthouses, and lasted for many years until it too eventually began to shake. It wasn’t the lighthouse at fault though – the rock it was built on had eroded. And so the Victorians built a fourth, the one which still stands, still warning ships to steer clear.
The chapter is a great mix of explaining the building techniques in language easily understandable by the complete layperson, together with vignettes about the architects and builders which humanise the subject. Nancollas also fills in the historical background, lightly but with enough depth to give a feel for what was going on in Britain and the western world at each point. He talks of Britain’s growing status as a maritime trading nation and tells tales of the shipwrecks and disasters that gave an urgency to finding some reliable way of guiding ships safely through the rocky hazards around the coast.
Each subsequent chapter takes a similar form, gradually leading us round the coasts: to Cornwall’s rocky shores to visit Wolf Rock lighthouse; over to the Scillies to Bishop Rock; up to Scotland to the Bell Rock off Arbroath, built by the grandfather of Robert Louis Stevenson; to the now disused and decaying Perch Rock in the Wirral; over to Ireland to Fastnet off Cork; and to Haulbowline on Carlingford Lough, in a kind of no-man’s-sea between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Each has its own story and its own history, and Nancollas extends out to tell us something of the places near which they’re situated.
For example, while discussing Bishop Rock, he talks about the Scillies, once one landmass and perhaps even attached to Cornwall, now divided into somewhat isolated islands by rising sea levels. He doesn’t specifically mention climate change, but talks of how the Scillies will eventually be completely submerged and, as the highest point, the Bishop Rock lighthouse will be the last thing in that seascape to be seen above the water. It’s beautifully written, and I found it both moving and frightening.
Or another example – Haulbowline. The troubled history of the divided island of Ireland means that all records of its building have been lost, if they ever existed. The lighthouse is now unmanned, but Nancollas visits it and tries to visualise it as it once was, with the help of stories from the men with him – the ferry pilot, the lighthouse mechanic, and the grandson of a previous keeper. He tells of how during the Troubles, the British Navy patrolled the lough, stopping and searching suspect ships for contraband, smuggled weapons, etc. He describes the lighthouse as liminal, belonging to neither one side nor the other but standing as a kind of symbol of humanity amidst this disputed and often violent zone.
I have one criticism of the book, which is the lack of adequate illustrations. There are some black and white on page photos, but the book is crying out for glossy sections of full colour pictures: of the lighthouses themselves first and foremost, but also of some of the many men we learn so much about along the way. (I nearly deducted half a star for the lack, but in the end couldn’t bring myself to do it.) That aside, I loved Nancollas’ writing, when he is explaining technical stuff simply, or when he is musing more philosophically about things past and future, or when he talks lyrically of the power of the sea.
A fascinating subject, brought wonderfully to life, I highly recommend this one.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Particular Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
If there’s one thing I love more than most things, it’s being told all about a subject I know nothing about by someone with an enthusiastic passion for it and the ability to write in a way that brings it to life. I knew nothing about the various rock lighthouses that stand as warnings to shipping around Britain’s shore, and I couldn’t have asked for a better guide to them than Tom Nancollas.
He starts with a brief introduction of himself – he is a building conservationist who chose to study rock lighthouses for his dissertation, giving him a lasting interest in the subject. Having regularly visited as a boy both the Wirral coastline and Cornwall, where his family originated, he tells us he grew up feeling an affinity for the sea and a fascination for all its many moods. For this book, he set out to visit seven of the major rock lighthouses, sometimes getting permission to land and see the interiors, other times examining them from the outside. Along the way, he tells us tales of their construction and history, of the men who built, lived in and maintained them over the years, and of the many shipwrecks they have doubtless averted and of some they didn’t. His style is non-academic, sometimes lyrical, always enthusiastic, and I found myself coming to share his fascination for these incredible feats of engineering and his admiration for those who built and worked on them.
He begins with Eddystone, off Plymouth, as a way of showing how what became the standard design for rock lighthouses developed. Eddystone has had four lighthouses over the centuries – the first rather whimsical structure unable to withstand its first storm, the second, a part timber building destroyed by fire. The third, built of interlocking stone blocks which provided the strength and stability required to stand up to the sea’s constant pounding, became the model for future lighthouses, and lasted for many years until it too eventually began to shake. It wasn’t the lighthouse at fault though – the rock it was built on had eroded. And so the Victorians built a fourth, the one which still stands, still warning ships to steer clear.
The chapter is a great mix of explaining the building techniques in language easily understandable by the complete layperson, together with vignettes about the architects and builders which humanise the subject. Nancollas also fills in the historical background, lightly but with enough depth to give a feel for what was going on in Britain and the western world at each point. He talks of Britain’s growing status as a maritime trading nation and tells tales of the shipwrecks and disasters that gave an urgency to finding some reliable way of guiding ships safely through the rocky hazards around the coast.
Each subsequent chapter takes a similar form, gradually leading us round the coasts: to Cornwall’s rocky shores to visit Wolf Rock lighthouse; over to the Scillies to Bishop Rock; up to Scotland to the Bell Rock off Arbroath, built by the grandfather of Robert Louis Stevenson; to the now disused and decaying Perch Rock in the Wirral; over to Ireland to Fastnet off Cork; and to Haulbowline on Carlingford Lough, in a kind of no-man’s-sea between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Each has its own story and its own history, and Nancollas extends out to tell us something of the places near which they’re situated.
For example, while discussing Bishop Rock, he talks about the Scillies, once one landmass and perhaps even attached to Cornwall, now divided into somewhat isolated islands by rising sea levels. He doesn’t specifically mention climate change, but talks of how the Scillies will eventually be completely submerged and, as the highest point, the Bishop Rock lighthouse will be the last thing in that seascape to be seen above the water. It’s beautifully written, and I found it both moving and frightening.
Or another example – Haulbowline. The troubled history of the divided island of Ireland means that all records of its building have been lost, if they ever existed. The lighthouse is now unmanned, but Nancollas visits it and tries to visualise it as it once was, with the help of stories from the men with him – the ferry pilot, the lighthouse mechanic, and the grandson of a previous keeper. He tells of how during the Troubles, the British Navy patrolled the lough, stopping and searching suspect ships for contraband, smuggled weapons, etc. He describes the lighthouse as liminal, belonging to neither one side nor the other but standing as a kind of symbol of humanity amidst this disputed and often violent zone.
I have one criticism of the book, which is the lack of adequate illustrations. There are some black and white on page photos, but the book is crying out for glossy sections of full colour pictures: of the lighthouses themselves first and foremost, but also of some of the many men we learn so much about along the way. (I nearly deducted half a star for the lack, but in the end couldn’t bring myself to do it.) That aside, I loved Nancollas’ writing, when he is explaining technical stuff simply, or when he is musing more philosophically about things past and future, or when he talks lyrically of the power of the sea.
I had time, from the elevated perspective of the tower balcony and lantern, to study the sea, really look at it, and watch it behaving in a way you don’t really see from the shore. It breaks around the reef in repeating patterns that reflect the submerged geology around the rock’s waist. There is a point to the south-west, in the path of the Atlantic, where the sea gathers itself up and splinters over a submerged reef on a long, horizontal plume that looks like the scaly neck of a giant beast. On a smaller piece of rock nearby it breaks into a perfectly contained white cloud, always the same size and shape. Engulfing the Little Fastnet, the sea falls back and dribbles in thousands of streams down crevices that will deepen over the centuries. Here, you get something of the sea’s eternity – rising, falling, calming, dousing and rinsing and thrusting against the rocks in myriad ways, a lazy, beast-like play of motion that will never end.
A fascinating subject, brought wonderfully to life, I highly recommend this one.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Particular Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
April 23, 2020
As somebody who is both obsessed and fascinated by lighthouses and will run across the beach back and forth with navigational notes in order to find out what the lights on the horizons are, I devoured this book.
I have no idea where this niche interest came from. I am obsessed with the idea of lighthouses. Something about them pulls me in very strongly. I've seen this book in Hodges Figgis some months ago and I remember being very excited and trying to find the lighthouses I know. I remember that back then, I wasn't as fascinated by the Fastnet Lighthouse as I am now. Not seeing my favourites, I put the book back, making a mental note to check it out later again.
Fast forward a few months later, my lighthouse obsession has consumed me a lot more and I was ready to dive in. I was gripped. I have to say, I did not enjoy some of the historical info. This person did this and that and came up with this and that idea and I, unable to remember names when I cannot connect them to faces, started getting lost. However, this slight disinterest changed whenever there was a passage of Tom visiting the lighthouses! The whole Haulbowline chapter, I sat on the beach, watched the ferries in the distance and the lighthouses that I can in fact see from my little town and my excitement was clearly visible as some people on the beach kept their distance. (Or was that due to social distancing?)
And, not mentioning the Fastnet chapter, which was probably my favourite due to Tom actually staying there, I even got a mention of my favourite lighthouse and one that I live close to and can see every day.
I do realise that this book is definitely not for everybody. But if you have just a mild interest in lighthouses/nautical themes, or you have visited a lighthouse before, I would definitely recommend you to read this. The language is beautiful and quite lyrical and it's a first-person style of non-fiction, which makes the experience very subjective.
Anyways, I think I'm off to complete that helicopter training that it seems like I would need in order to visit these beacons.
I have no idea where this niche interest came from. I am obsessed with the idea of lighthouses. Something about them pulls me in very strongly. I've seen this book in Hodges Figgis some months ago and I remember being very excited and trying to find the lighthouses I know. I remember that back then, I wasn't as fascinated by the Fastnet Lighthouse as I am now. Not seeing my favourites, I put the book back, making a mental note to check it out later again.
Fast forward a few months later, my lighthouse obsession has consumed me a lot more and I was ready to dive in. I was gripped. I have to say, I did not enjoy some of the historical info. This person did this and that and came up with this and that idea and I, unable to remember names when I cannot connect them to faces, started getting lost. However, this slight disinterest changed whenever there was a passage of Tom visiting the lighthouses! The whole Haulbowline chapter, I sat on the beach, watched the ferries in the distance and the lighthouses that I can in fact see from my little town and my excitement was clearly visible as some people on the beach kept their distance. (Or was that due to social distancing?)
And, not mentioning the Fastnet chapter, which was probably my favourite due to Tom actually staying there, I even got a mention of my favourite lighthouse and one that I live close to and can see every day.
I do realise that this book is definitely not for everybody. But if you have just a mild interest in lighthouses/nautical themes, or you have visited a lighthouse before, I would definitely recommend you to read this. The language is beautiful and quite lyrical and it's a first-person style of non-fiction, which makes the experience very subjective.
Anyways, I think I'm off to complete that helicopter training that it seems like I would need in order to visit these beacons.
May 10, 2019
Lighthouses lost a little of their romance when they became fully automated solar-powered machines. They have a long history though as beacons to guide sailors safely around the coast. Even with modern technology like GPS fitted to ships, they are still relevant and necessary. There are over 60 lighthouses in the UK, my nearest is in Portland Bill in Dorset. This is a coastal one, but this book is about the handful that are built on tiny outcrops of rock standing against the might of the sea and everything that is thrown at it.
Nancollas had originally trained as a building conservationist before falling for lighthouses and rock lighthouses in particular. All eight of the lighthouses that he writes about in here have stories still to tell. He is fascinated by the men who conceived and designed them to be able to face the strongest waves and winds, by how they were built and the ones that didn’t survive and were rebuilt. He teases apart their histories and heads out to sea to get first-hand experience as to what it was like to travel to these places. However, as resilient as they are, they are not totally self-sufficient and still rely on care and maintenance from us. He even undertakes crash training in a helicopter simulator so he can travel out to stay in the Fastnet lighthouse for a week while a generator is serviced and rebuilt.
I thought that this book was excellent, it has a strong narrative like all good non-fiction should and it is well researched, not only from behind a desk but his experiences bobbing up and down on a boat travelling to visit them. It has a personal element too, not only is he obsessed by them, but he found a link to the construction of one of the lighthouses following some research into his family tree. I particularly liked the interlude where he visits the lighthouse in Blackwall, London where they experimented and tried various pieces of new kit out prior to dispatching them to the lighthouses around the UK. If you have a thing about lighthouses, then I’d also recommend Stargazing by Peter Hill too.
Nancollas had originally trained as a building conservationist before falling for lighthouses and rock lighthouses in particular. All eight of the lighthouses that he writes about in here have stories still to tell. He is fascinated by the men who conceived and designed them to be able to face the strongest waves and winds, by how they were built and the ones that didn’t survive and were rebuilt. He teases apart their histories and heads out to sea to get first-hand experience as to what it was like to travel to these places. However, as resilient as they are, they are not totally self-sufficient and still rely on care and maintenance from us. He even undertakes crash training in a helicopter simulator so he can travel out to stay in the Fastnet lighthouse for a week while a generator is serviced and rebuilt.
I thought that this book was excellent, it has a strong narrative like all good non-fiction should and it is well researched, not only from behind a desk but his experiences bobbing up and down on a boat travelling to visit them. It has a personal element too, not only is he obsessed by them, but he found a link to the construction of one of the lighthouses following some research into his family tree. I particularly liked the interlude where he visits the lighthouse in Blackwall, London where they experimented and tried various pieces of new kit out prior to dispatching them to the lighthouses around the UK. If you have a thing about lighthouses, then I’d also recommend Stargazing by Peter Hill too.
August 28, 2025
Lighthouses and their history are a passion of mine, and though this isn’t as good as the books by Sharma Krauskopf (Scottish Lighthouses and Scotland's Northern Lights by Sharma Krauskopf or by Bella Bathurst (The Lighthouse Stevensons), this is an excellent addition to the particular literary canon. Actually, the Stevenson’s get very little mention.
Nancollas concentrates on lighthouses built solely on rock, and his style is of a meditative journey as he explores each of the seven he selects. From the Wirral himself, as indeed am I, he begins with the relative tameness of Perch Rock on New Brighton beach, before considering the absolute opposite, the wild and desolate light at Fastnet.
His accounts of his journeys, and his meetings with the skippers of the boat’s that take him, the old lighthouse crews, and the current owners, are the highlight of the book.
Some, including me, will question his choice of the seven, and how the likes of Muckle Flugga, surely the most wild of all, was not included. A cynic may say that his choice was limited to those he could actually get permission to go to..
Nancollas concentrates on lighthouses built solely on rock, and his style is of a meditative journey as he explores each of the seven he selects. From the Wirral himself, as indeed am I, he begins with the relative tameness of Perch Rock on New Brighton beach, before considering the absolute opposite, the wild and desolate light at Fastnet.
His accounts of his journeys, and his meetings with the skippers of the boat’s that take him, the old lighthouse crews, and the current owners, are the highlight of the book.
Some, including me, will question his choice of the seven, and how the likes of Muckle Flugga, surely the most wild of all, was not included. A cynic may say that his choice was limited to those he could actually get permission to go to..
February 13, 2020
I’ve been interested in this one ever since it was published. I’m not exactly sure why – I didn’t know anything about lighthouses and have never been particularly fascinated by them – but I sometimes tend to be attracted to odd subjects, and I think this qualifies as that! And it’s safe to say that even if I wasn’t fascinated before, I am now.
Before this, I’d never thought of the process of building a lighthouse. Moreover, I’d never even thought about the difference between land and rock lighthouses, though now that difference seems ridiculously obvious. This building process, the design, the stories about the builders and the keepers and, not least, the harsh and unpredictable landscapes and environments surrounding these lighthouses were what interested me most, and I feel a slight itch to go see a rock lighthouse for myself. The romantic in me also laments the loss of the lighthouse keepers – automation has made them redundant, and there’s really no reason for them to live in a stone tower on a reef in the middle of the sea for months at a time in this day and age, but there’s something wonderfully romantic about that notion.
While I did enjoy this one, it also left something to be desired. Nancollas seems very intent on creating a higher meaning that can be connected to the places when he visits them or relates their stories, and I’m not always entirely convinced by the feelings he attempts to make me feel. It also (in my opinion) suffers from the lack of more photos/drawings of the lighthouses in full – or just of better photos/drawings, really. There are several photos included, but many of them show rather irrelevant details or only show the lighthouses from far away, making it impossible to get a sense of the look and feel of the buildings. The Fastnet lighthouse, for example, he describes as ‘pitch-perfect in its form and details’ and as having ‘an obvious flawlessness’, yet there is not a single photo of the finished lighthouse, only one of it being built, focusing on a certain engineer. The Perch Rock is another lighthouse we don’t get a single photo of. And particularly Perch Rock and Fastnet were two of those he visited personally, even relating in the book how he took photos of them, so I have trouble understanding why better photos were not included. Such visual aids would have heightened my reading enjoyment substantially. Luckily, there is always Google!
I think my true rating is somewhere in the region of 3.75 stars. Overall, it was a really enjoyable read that opened my eyes to things I'd never considered before, and which tells passionately about the history of rock lighthouses (granted a niche subject, but give it a try if you're at all interested!)
Before this, I’d never thought of the process of building a lighthouse. Moreover, I’d never even thought about the difference between land and rock lighthouses, though now that difference seems ridiculously obvious. This building process, the design, the stories about the builders and the keepers and, not least, the harsh and unpredictable landscapes and environments surrounding these lighthouses were what interested me most, and I feel a slight itch to go see a rock lighthouse for myself. The romantic in me also laments the loss of the lighthouse keepers – automation has made them redundant, and there’s really no reason for them to live in a stone tower on a reef in the middle of the sea for months at a time in this day and age, but there’s something wonderfully romantic about that notion.
While I did enjoy this one, it also left something to be desired. Nancollas seems very intent on creating a higher meaning that can be connected to the places when he visits them or relates their stories, and I’m not always entirely convinced by the feelings he attempts to make me feel. It also (in my opinion) suffers from the lack of more photos/drawings of the lighthouses in full – or just of better photos/drawings, really. There are several photos included, but many of them show rather irrelevant details or only show the lighthouses from far away, making it impossible to get a sense of the look and feel of the buildings. The Fastnet lighthouse, for example, he describes as ‘pitch-perfect in its form and details’ and as having ‘an obvious flawlessness’, yet there is not a single photo of the finished lighthouse, only one of it being built, focusing on a certain engineer. The Perch Rock is another lighthouse we don’t get a single photo of. And particularly Perch Rock and Fastnet were two of those he visited personally, even relating in the book how he took photos of them, so I have trouble understanding why better photos were not included. Such visual aids would have heightened my reading enjoyment substantially. Luckily, there is always Google!
I think my true rating is somewhere in the region of 3.75 stars. Overall, it was a really enjoyable read that opened my eyes to things I'd never considered before, and which tells passionately about the history of rock lighthouses (granted a niche subject, but give it a try if you're at all interested!)
December 10, 2019
Lighthouses. 💚
January 8, 2020
I love nonfiction about obscure subjects, but those books either have to be written with humour and entertainment or the author's passion needs to shine through. Sadly neither was true of Seashaken Houses so "it was okay" just about sums up my feelings. It's well-written though humourless, and the author gets a bit cringingly poetic at times. It's obvious he did a lot of research but the book still doesn't read like he actually cares much about lighthouses and yeah, okay, they're lighthouses... but he did choose to write a book on them.
An okay read but not one I would recommend.
An okay read but not one I would recommend.
December 28, 2019
I got this book as it was Waterstones book of the month and that has led me to some unexpected gems like Other Minds and Seabirds Cry - both being books on niche subjects that were unexpectedly fascinating. This was not the case here. It’s a history of lighthouses built on reefs around the UK. It’s well written if you are interested in that, but a bit repetitive if it’s not a particular interest of yours.
November 10, 2025
Reads like watching a documentary
January 3, 2021
I so loved this book. After I finished it, I flicked through it again to savour the descriptions, gazed at the photos to drink in their bleak, beguiling atmosphere. A spellbinding account of the wild places that lie just on the outskirts of our shores.
October 5, 2023
So dry, I stopped reading and just skimmed after the 4th chapter. Only for if you're really obsessed with light houses.
July 22, 2022
Scattered around the coast of Great Britain and Ireland are twenty-one ‘rock lighthouses’, beacons for shipping built on isolated reefs and outcrops of bare rock, sometimes many miles from the mainland. The story of how they came to be constructed starts further back than you might expect, with Henry Winstanley’s first Eddystone Light in 1698. Tom Nancollas’s selective history of the most incredible of the lights is one of incredible human endeavour, engineering disasters and triumphs and the remarkable, remorseless power of the sea. Confessing to a lifelong fascination with lighthouses, there’s a personal element in this history to, capped by the author’s five day stay at the most isolated and dramatic of all the lighthouses in his story, the Fastnet Light, eight miles off the west Cork coast, on the islet known as ‘Ireland’s teardrop’. For such a dramatic story where location and design are everything, the book is unfortunately somewhat let down by its paucity of illustrations.
January 24, 2025
As someone who's always dreamed of living in a lighthouse, Sea Shaken Houses by Tom Nancollas was enthralling. The book delves into the history and construction of rock lighthouses, capturing the dangerous and awe-inspiring feats of engineering that made these structures possible, all against the backdrop of nature’s harshest elements.
The author reflects on how technology has changed these historic landmarks, with old lanterns powered by generators being replaced by solar panels, which detract from the beauty of the lighthouse. There’s a sense of nostalgia and reverence for the past, along with hope that these lighthouses will stand the test of time and remain as beacons—not just for ships, but for all the stories and history they carry.
Overall, Sea Shaken Houses is a fascinating look at both the past and future of these sea-bound structures, making it a must-read for anyone interested in history, engineering, and the sea.
The author reflects on how technology has changed these historic landmarks, with old lanterns powered by generators being replaced by solar panels, which detract from the beauty of the lighthouse. There’s a sense of nostalgia and reverence for the past, along with hope that these lighthouses will stand the test of time and remain as beacons—not just for ships, but for all the stories and history they carry.
Overall, Sea Shaken Houses is a fascinating look at both the past and future of these sea-bound structures, making it a must-read for anyone interested in history, engineering, and the sea.
March 25, 2024
«No one seemed to know what the next phase of the rock lighthouses' story would be, or would entertain the idea that, one day, these towers could be redundant for navigational purposes. Perhaps it is an emotional thing, like refusing to countenance the death of a loved one. But technology advances at incomprehensible speed. That they should cease to operate seems unthinkable —such is the feeling of permanence they radiate— but it was once unthinkable that they should ever be de-manned and automated.»
A must-read for lighthouse enthusiasts. I especially liked that it is not just a compilation of facts about certain of this buildings in Britain and Ireland, but there are also author's notes and evocations which lighten the reading and immerse you in the magic of lighthouses.
A must-read for lighthouse enthusiasts. I especially liked that it is not just a compilation of facts about certain of this buildings in Britain and Ireland, but there are also author's notes and evocations which lighten the reading and immerse you in the magic of lighthouses.
January 14, 2026
I wish Nancollas had opted for a bit more of a narrative arc/red thread than the one he went for - I think using his final story as the foundation of his lighthouse history would have made everything be a bite more coherent and, dare I say, engaging. Two disclaimers: this was gifted to me a few years ago so I have only just picked it up out of my TBR stack to honor that gift. I also listened to it on audiobook, which is usually the way to go for nonfiction books for me, but may not have been the best fit for this book.
What I've learned from this is that I may just be more interested in lighthouse keepers than in the architectural history of their dwellings, and luckily there are a bunch of books which can scratch that itch :-)
What I've learned from this is that I may just be more interested in lighthouse keepers than in the architectural history of their dwellings, and luckily there are a bunch of books which can scratch that itch :-)
January 23, 2020
Fantastic book about those beacons of solidity that stand facing the beast of the ocean day after day, year after year, decade after decade.
Nancollas does a brilliant job of charting the historical, cultural and technical aspects of lighthouse building, maintenance and preservation.
He makes the subject accessible, interesting and compelling.
A thoroughly enjoyable read.
Nancollas does a brilliant job of charting the historical, cultural and technical aspects of lighthouse building, maintenance and preservation.
He makes the subject accessible, interesting and compelling.
A thoroughly enjoyable read.
August 15, 2019
Quite lovely at times, but I think I should have read this as individual essays and not as a single book. I am just not in anyway as fascinated by lighthouses as the author evidently is, and my enjoyment of this suffered as a result of glutting on lighthouse based information. Will be a fantastic Christmas gift for that awkward male relative who you never know what to get though.
July 17, 2023
What an interesting read this is! Covering the design and history of the rock lighthouses of Great Britain and Ireland, and coherently relating engineering and mechanical considerations in the building of rock lighthouses, this book also records the social histories of the communities linked to these offshore towers.
Beautifully written - lyrical, indeed - I look forward to reading more from this competent and engaging young man of Cornish ancestry, whose love of seascapes and seashaken structures shines - like the light from the Bishop Rock - with stellar strength.
Beautifully written - lyrical, indeed - I look forward to reading more from this competent and engaging young man of Cornish ancestry, whose love of seascapes and seashaken structures shines - like the light from the Bishop Rock - with stellar strength.
November 10, 2022
Very enjoyable and very personal history of Britain’s deepwater lighthouses.
February 10, 2019
Another of those books as a first person narrative about a non-fiction topis: in this case lighthouses. The author aets out to discover something of the history and building of off-shore lighthouse around the British Isles. It's a story of the visitations to what are now all automated lights. In many cases the history of the people behind the construction is non-existent or lost. The book cried out for more structure and particularly pictures: the author reports on a number of occasions that he'd taken lots of pictures: why aren't many more of them in the book?A frustrating read.
November 18, 2022
I'm interested in the subject matter and the author has clearly done his research, but I'm afraid this falls under the category of 'Tries too hard' - Tom Nancollas is no Tom Rolt, and he spends too much time trying to draw forced analogies in a would-be literary style that increasingly grated upon me. The material in the book is potentially fascinating, although I feel the author could have been more selective in his ragbag choice of what to include; when talking about the Perch Rock lighthouse off Liverpool, for example, did we really need to know that the designer of an early submarine "later... lost his savings on a failed farm in Florida", a factoid which has nothing to do with the preceding anecdote about the submarine sinking on the way to Portsmouth, which has nothing to do with Birkenhead other than the fact that it was built there, which has nothing to do with the Perch Rock other than the fact that the lighthouse keepers could see Birkenhead and might theoretically have seen the submarine? It's a clear case of research that the writer couldn't bear not to use.
The author's personal visits to his selected lighthouses, also potentially fascinating, can be irritating too: Clung-clung-clung goes the sound of my boots on each tread, reverberating noisily in the level above, he writes. And then he spends time wondering in real-time over the purpose of a room in Haulbowline lighthouse, musing over its symbols and its architect - "An element of whimsy now colours the vague picture I have of him" - and speculating irrationally about haunting by sprirts of the waters ("Perhaps they had been held at bay by offerings from that projecting room"). Then, minutes and pages later, he actually takes the trouble to ask the lighthouse technician working on site, and gets the prosaic answer that it displayed a light at half-time to indicate the depth of water over the sandbar at the entrance to the lough. I found it both frustrating and self-indulgent to waste space on the author's fantasies in a passage that is supposed to be describing what the deserted inside of Haulbowline is actually like, rather than having the function and appearance artificially separated across two separate passages; we really don't need a description of what he supposedly thought the room was for during the brief period when he didn't know what it was for, and the whole thing comes across as yet another attempt at literary pretension. (And again, I can't help thinking how Rolt would have integrated the mysticism and the engineering function so much better. )
Too many of the analogies he is making are overblown beyond all credibility: There is a sense of destiny about this granite. It began life as fluid magma, first pushed up from the Earth's core, then cooled over millennia. As it solidified, it became a structure of interlocking mineral crystals, like the interlocking pieces of the lighthouses, as though the stone itself was meant for this purpose. I found it frustrating, because this could have been a very good book. It certainly has the subject matter, and the author's enthusiasm is self-evident - and the structure of narrating the story of each lighthouse via his own experience in getting there (or, in the case of the Wolf Rock, failing to do so) could have worked well.
If he had been content to be a sturdily unliterary non-fiction writer, evoking the history and purpose of what he had discovered and evoking the landscapes he visits, I suspect I would have enjoyed this book a lot better. As it is, I have given it an unfairly adverse review for something that initially attracted me, simply because the author tries and repeatedly falls short of doing something more, which I found an increasingly annoying experience.
The author's personal visits to his selected lighthouses, also potentially fascinating, can be irritating too: Clung-clung-clung goes the sound of my boots on each tread, reverberating noisily in the level above, he writes. And then he spends time wondering in real-time over the purpose of a room in Haulbowline lighthouse, musing over its symbols and its architect - "An element of whimsy now colours the vague picture I have of him" - and speculating irrationally about haunting by sprirts of the waters ("Perhaps they had been held at bay by offerings from that projecting room"). Then, minutes and pages later, he actually takes the trouble to ask the lighthouse technician working on site, and gets the prosaic answer that it displayed a light at half-time to indicate the depth of water over the sandbar at the entrance to the lough. I found it both frustrating and self-indulgent to waste space on the author's fantasies in a passage that is supposed to be describing what the deserted inside of Haulbowline is actually like, rather than having the function and appearance artificially separated across two separate passages; we really don't need a description of what he supposedly thought the room was for during the brief period when he didn't know what it was for, and the whole thing comes across as yet another attempt at literary pretension. (And again, I can't help thinking how Rolt would have integrated the mysticism and the engineering function so much better. )
Too many of the analogies he is making are overblown beyond all credibility: There is a sense of destiny about this granite. It began life as fluid magma, first pushed up from the Earth's core, then cooled over millennia. As it solidified, it became a structure of interlocking mineral crystals, like the interlocking pieces of the lighthouses, as though the stone itself was meant for this purpose. I found it frustrating, because this could have been a very good book. It certainly has the subject matter, and the author's enthusiasm is self-evident - and the structure of narrating the story of each lighthouse via his own experience in getting there (or, in the case of the Wolf Rock, failing to do so) could have worked well.
If he had been content to be a sturdily unliterary non-fiction writer, evoking the history and purpose of what he had discovered and evoking the landscapes he visits, I suspect I would have enjoyed this book a lot better. As it is, I have given it an unfairly adverse review for something that initially attracted me, simply because the author tries and repeatedly falls short of doing something more, which I found an increasingly annoying experience.
September 19, 2023
There is something magical about lighthouses, the way they perch precariously and vertiginously at the very edges of human habitation…or in the case of the rock houses, seemingly beyond it. They are marvels of human endeavour and bravery. They are also monuments to a lost way of life. Automation has rendered the lighthouse keeper’s role obsolete. In short, I find lighthouses beautiful and fascinating. Which brings me to the book...
In some ways my giving this book four stars feels as though I’m selling this book short. In others, it feels generous.
There is a lot of great detail in this book, and it's obvious the author loves his subject.
The narrative focuses more on the buildings and how they were built and work(ed), rather that the people who used to operate them. Although anecdotes about various individuals and incidents are thrown in to add colour, the stars of this book are the buildings.
Pros: lots information about innovation, architecture, and peril at sea. Plus there is some evocative language used.
Cons: the narrative jumps around from history to journal like narrative. I found the bouncing between the two distracting.
Some lighthouses felt more exciting than others, but that’s going to be down to personal taste. (For me, the Bell Rock holds particular fascination. I also enjoyed hearing about Wolf Rock, Bishop's Rock, and Fastnet.)
I listened to the audiobook, so maybe it's harsh for me to say I wish there were photographs to illustrate the text; I found myself web searching to find images and videos to supplement the narrative and bring the book to life. Having seen other reviews and looked at the detail of the book itself, I think it’s okay to mention this potential lack to others.
If ever a fully illustrated version is published as a glossy coffee table book, I’d be interested to see it.
Finally, a word about what this book isn’t. It’s not a social history of the keepers and their families. We don’t learn much about the lives of the people on the shore stations or even that much about the day to day life of the keepers. That’s another book I would definitely read.
In some ways my giving this book four stars feels as though I’m selling this book short. In others, it feels generous.
There is a lot of great detail in this book, and it's obvious the author loves his subject.
The narrative focuses more on the buildings and how they were built and work(ed), rather that the people who used to operate them. Although anecdotes about various individuals and incidents are thrown in to add colour, the stars of this book are the buildings.
Pros: lots information about innovation, architecture, and peril at sea. Plus there is some evocative language used.
Cons: the narrative jumps around from history to journal like narrative. I found the bouncing between the two distracting.
Some lighthouses felt more exciting than others, but that’s going to be down to personal taste. (For me, the Bell Rock holds particular fascination. I also enjoyed hearing about Wolf Rock, Bishop's Rock, and Fastnet.)
I listened to the audiobook, so maybe it's harsh for me to say I wish there were photographs to illustrate the text; I found myself web searching to find images and videos to supplement the narrative and bring the book to life. Having seen other reviews and looked at the detail of the book itself, I think it’s okay to mention this potential lack to others.
If ever a fully illustrated version is published as a glossy coffee table book, I’d be interested to see it.
Finally, a word about what this book isn’t. It’s not a social history of the keepers and their families. We don’t learn much about the lives of the people on the shore stations or even that much about the day to day life of the keepers. That’s another book I would definitely read.
August 6, 2019
The ideal thing to do when you already have seven books on the go is to pick up another one. This I duly did. I have long had a fascination with Lighthouses, which is the kind of sentence that explains why I am still single. I blame Doctor Who's 'The Horror of Fang Rock' for this. And I blame Matthew Guerrieri's Black Archive* on 'The Horror of Fang Rock' for leading me to this book. Matthew Guerrieri's book is a guide to the lighthouse as a cultural artifact as well as being about a Doctor Who story & I think - but can't check - that this book was one of Guerrieri's sources.
It's a history of British lighthouses, using the stories of eight of them to illustrate more general points about their development. They are, as this book makes clear, spectacular engineering achievements whose construction was fraught with risk. The men who designed, built and then manned them - and not just men - although not Trinity House manned lighthouses - all have interesting stories to tell. They include the Stevenson family, one of whom was to give up on lighthouses and write books instead.**
It's a good introduction to the topic & something of a taster if you're interested in the subject. If there you want to know more about specific parts of the story - about the engineers; the lighthouse men; the ships, etc - then you can go out and dig into other books, which is where I have a small quibble. This book is missing a bibliography. Books are mentioned in passing but I would have really appreciated a proper bibliography.
Anyway, aside from that quibble I recommend this as a fine introduction. Coincidentally - or is it? - I'm currently also reading 'The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter' by Hazel Gaynor so lighthouses have featured a little more in my reading this year than I expected.
*Published by Obverse Books. There's a review of it on my Goodreads account.
**Robert Louis Stevenson if you hadn't guessed.
It's a history of British lighthouses, using the stories of eight of them to illustrate more general points about their development. They are, as this book makes clear, spectacular engineering achievements whose construction was fraught with risk. The men who designed, built and then manned them - and not just men - although not Trinity House manned lighthouses - all have interesting stories to tell. They include the Stevenson family, one of whom was to give up on lighthouses and write books instead.**
It's a good introduction to the topic & something of a taster if you're interested in the subject. If there you want to know more about specific parts of the story - about the engineers; the lighthouse men; the ships, etc - then you can go out and dig into other books, which is where I have a small quibble. This book is missing a bibliography. Books are mentioned in passing but I would have really appreciated a proper bibliography.
Anyway, aside from that quibble I recommend this as a fine introduction. Coincidentally - or is it? - I'm currently also reading 'The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter' by Hazel Gaynor so lighthouses have featured a little more in my reading this year than I expected.
*Published by Obverse Books. There's a review of it on my Goodreads account.
**Robert Louis Stevenson if you hadn't guessed.
June 6, 2023
Tom Nancollas has produced a delightful book on the British (and Irish) rock lighthouses. He illuminates almost every aspect of the subject by highlighting eight sites and giving a theme to each - emphasising the history of the form and what it was like to work on and in them.
Some praise is due here for not allowing the personal journey (the psycho-geographical aspect) to get in the way of the information flow or telling a coherent story. Nearly everything is to the point and Nancollas writes well.
Usually I have a problem with publishers' indulgence of excessive sentiment and contemporary ideology in such books but I managed to find only two urban liberal 'wokisms' which is pretty impressive nowadays. The restraint is commendable.
What Nancollas does exceptionally well is fill us with awe at the engineering achievements of an older trading Britain in building these structures on reefs usually far from land and requiring (before twentieth century automation) a very special type of worker to build, man and maintain them.
Nancollas retains his human touch with well judged accounts of those who still work in the lighthouse sector. His writing skills enable us to get a very good idea of what it must be like to go on duty in rough seas and live cooped up in something about as cramped and abandoned as a moon base.
Perhaps we could have done with a better set of photographs to match this awe (although the recent picture of the steps up to the Bishops Rock lighthouse with only a section of the massive granite base shown is worth a thousand words) but this is a quibble.
A very enjoyable read about the very boundaries of these islands and a reminder of just how dangerous trade and travel could be before these amazing structures were built and indeed continued to be until the arrival of satellite navigation.
September 30, 2024
This is a personal history of some of the most isolated, weather-beaten and frankly inhospitable buildings in Britain and Ireland. Each of these lighthouses stand somewhere out at sea, off the coast, and are accessible only by brave souls in a boat or helicopter (if at all).
What could have been quite a dull and repetitive text is actually very engaging, and Nancollas successfully transports the reader to the locations he’s describing. This is an achievement, given that the stories of rock lighthouse construction tend to be pretty similar - they take place around the same time, in the same sorts of places, and often involve roughly the same people, there being a narrow pool of men qualified for the task in the nineteenth-century. But Nancollas conveys a character for each location, mainly through his personal journey of approach and tour around the sites. It’s his personal responses, musings and recollections that imbue each lighthouse with something memorable (even when he’s wrong, as for example when he gets corrected by one lighthouse keeper on what he’d assumed was the purpose of a particular set of pipes).
What he does well is weave the stories of his own visits to the lighthouses in with the stories of their construction and use. Even with the Wolf Rock, which he can’t visit in person, he goes on a tour of the mind and memory with a former keeper, aided by a photographic archive that makes the whole thing just as vivid as if he'd actually been.
This is well worth a dive into British/Irish industrial and maritime history, and serves as a testament to the brave souls involved in lighting the seas 'for the safety of all'.
What could have been quite a dull and repetitive text is actually very engaging, and Nancollas successfully transports the reader to the locations he’s describing. This is an achievement, given that the stories of rock lighthouse construction tend to be pretty similar - they take place around the same time, in the same sorts of places, and often involve roughly the same people, there being a narrow pool of men qualified for the task in the nineteenth-century. But Nancollas conveys a character for each location, mainly through his personal journey of approach and tour around the sites. It’s his personal responses, musings and recollections that imbue each lighthouse with something memorable (even when he’s wrong, as for example when he gets corrected by one lighthouse keeper on what he’d assumed was the purpose of a particular set of pipes).
What he does well is weave the stories of his own visits to the lighthouses in with the stories of their construction and use. Even with the Wolf Rock, which he can’t visit in person, he goes on a tour of the mind and memory with a former keeper, aided by a photographic archive that makes the whole thing just as vivid as if he'd actually been.
This is well worth a dive into British/Irish industrial and maritime history, and serves as a testament to the brave souls involved in lighting the seas 'for the safety of all'.
August 31, 2020
I'm not quite sure what compelled me to pick up this book last year when I saw it in Waterstones. Perhaps it was the free bookmark and postcard I got with it. Or perhaps it was just the fact that it was about lighthouses, buildings that have fascinated me for many years now. Either way, I'm glad I did notice it and pick it up, as I may never have come across it otherwise.
This is a personal but informative account of the rock lighthouses that surround Great Britain and Ireland, built on rocky outcrops of land away from the coast, to guide ships in the dark, unforgiving sea. This book managed to hold my interest precisely because of how personal a journey it seemed to be for the author, and how passionate he is about his subject. He writes well, conveying a lot of information into a relatively short book. I liked the brief history lessons we got, as well as the information about how the lighthouses were built. It was also nice to get the insight from people who had worked in the lighthouses, and to get the author's view on what it was like as he stayed inside a couple of them himself.
Overall, this was a surprisingly interesting book, and if you are at all interested in the lighthouses that surround our coasts, then I would recommend picking this up.
This is a personal but informative account of the rock lighthouses that surround Great Britain and Ireland, built on rocky outcrops of land away from the coast, to guide ships in the dark, unforgiving sea. This book managed to hold my interest precisely because of how personal a journey it seemed to be for the author, and how passionate he is about his subject. He writes well, conveying a lot of information into a relatively short book. I liked the brief history lessons we got, as well as the information about how the lighthouses were built. It was also nice to get the insight from people who had worked in the lighthouses, and to get the author's view on what it was like as he stayed inside a couple of them himself.
Overall, this was a surprisingly interesting book, and if you are at all interested in the lighthouses that surround our coasts, then I would recommend picking this up.
January 18, 2019
One cannot read this tale of rock lighthouses without being in a constant state of awe, not only of the incredible power of the sea but also of man’s ingenuity, creativity, tenacity, persistence and resourcefulness. The many tales in this book of shipwrecks, boats flung around like mere playthings and details of thousands of lives lost as a result, are a reminder that ‘it is dangerous not to fear the sea’. The destructiveness of the wind and waves makes it amazing that men would even contemplate building towers on slabs of rocks miles away from the safety of the shore. Add to this the long list of obstacles that lighthouse designers and builders needed to overcome and it is truly incredible that any rock lighthouses were ever built. Tom Nancollas’ recount of these ‘seashaken houses’ brings to life not only the buildings themselves, but also the people linked to them, whether it be designers, builders, lighthouse keepers or nearby communities. This book is not a dull recount of facts and figures but a fascinating and gripping story of ‘these magnificent, isolated sentinels’. You certainly will never look at lighthouses in the same way again.
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September 3, 2021This one grew on me towards the end. I initially found it hard not to compare it unfavourably with another recent (and excellent) listen, The Foghorn's Lament. It was a case of judging this book by what it's not, rather than what it is. This book is less expansive and more focused; there are strands of an interesting personal journey throughout but the author is more often happy to keep himself in the background and the push the history to the fore. The book ends up being essentially a neatly structured general interest book about some notable lighthouses around the British Isles. The author's not afraid to strike a romantic tone at times and there's just enough reflective wandering to stop it from becoming too dry.
I listened to the audiobook (while also consulting a paperback copy for the illustrations) and the narration was expressive but workmanlike. All things considered, this is the first audiobook I've come across in my short listening history for which I'd recommend reading it over listening.
I listened to the audiobook (while also consulting a paperback copy for the illustrations) and the narration was expressive but workmanlike. All things considered, this is the first audiobook I've come across in my short listening history for which I'd recommend reading it over listening.
August 11, 2019
Fascinating subject but this book skimmed the surface, for me. As other reviewers mention, there is a serious lack of photographs - we get many descriptions of interiors, exteriors, lamps, glass, equipment etc but very few photos, leaving me a little frustrated.
Also, the book is structured around a sequential selection of rock lighthouses dotted around Britain. It wasn’t clear to me how these particular lighthouses were selected for the book and others left out. So there isn’t a chronological narrative regarding lighthouse history or technological advances, this information is spread across the various chapters.
I did enjoy the author’s writing style and felt he was at his best in the lyrical sections rather than the more prosaic ‘imparting technical facts about the power outage of lamps in 19th Century’.
If you’re interested in lighthouse fiction, I recommend Pharricide by Vincent de Swarte (translation by Nicholas Royle) - a dark tale about a taxidermist lighthouse keeper.
Also, the book is structured around a sequential selection of rock lighthouses dotted around Britain. It wasn’t clear to me how these particular lighthouses were selected for the book and others left out. So there isn’t a chronological narrative regarding lighthouse history or technological advances, this information is spread across the various chapters.
I did enjoy the author’s writing style and felt he was at his best in the lyrical sections rather than the more prosaic ‘imparting technical facts about the power outage of lamps in 19th Century’.
If you’re interested in lighthouse fiction, I recommend Pharricide by Vincent de Swarte (translation by Nicholas Royle) - a dark tale about a taxidermist lighthouse keeper.
March 6, 2020
The book is an account of Nancollas’ visits to 8 lighthouses perched on reefs away from the mainland. And one at Blackwall in East London where many were tested. It is “a journey through a circular world” along the “outer edges of the realm” composed of man-made structures that provide both an ancient certainty and “emit an unprejudiced message of fellowship” and openness to the rest of the world. Like the early stonework, the story dovetails vivid descriptions of the engineering with warm tales of the people associated with these rock lighthouses.
The book enlightened me on a subject that never entered my consciousness. Its narrow historical lens will be most of interest to historians of engineering and navigation. However Nancollas’ laconic, nostalgic and almost poetic writing kept me reading. As well as being drawn to “the sensation of being temporarily marooned” and the seeking of a romanticised exclusion that these stories evoke with such precise strokes of the pen.
The book enlightened me on a subject that never entered my consciousness. Its narrow historical lens will be most of interest to historians of engineering and navigation. However Nancollas’ laconic, nostalgic and almost poetic writing kept me reading. As well as being drawn to “the sensation of being temporarily marooned” and the seeking of a romanticised exclusion that these stories evoke with such precise strokes of the pen.
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