Pendeen Lighthouse - 17/08/09

It is still in use. I was there on 17th February 2009 and took photos of the sunset, posted here, and I saw the light. The wife of a keeper there was a good friend of my mother s and their son and daughter were roughly contemporaries of mine at school. This is why I can recall the lighthouse telephone was St Just 6 in those days. The foghorn was a near constant sound-track to my boyhood or so it seemed. I could time a twenty second interval to perfection in those days. The moans of the first few blasts as it warmed up were most extraordinary. Those compressed horns were replaced several years ago. I went along on a number of tours of the lighthouse as a boy and the lamp floating on the bath of mercury impressed me greatly.

tpp, just put Handel Bluer into Google. You d find out a lot by reading his book Pendeen (Lighthouses of England and Wales) .

Amen! Chill saw the light!! (Sorry, couldn t resist.) read#
I remember a tour of the lighthouse when I was young too. I think it was my first lighthouse.

Thanks PZM I ll look out for that.

My wife lived here as an infant in the mid-1970s when her father was the keeper.

I thought the keepers had cottages. read#

Fair point, they didn t actually live in the lamp room!

I see many references to the keepers accommodation being let out for holidays but I cannot find it advertised anywhere.
Just curious, and wondering how large the warning about the foghorns is printed.

Just put Trinity House Lighthouse Cottages into Google, Chill.

From one website:

You are reminded that Pendeen Lighthouse is an operational lighthouse and there is an electronic fog signal that operates automatically, ear plugs are provided in case conditions are misty.

read#

Thanks PZM, I don t know how I failed to find that. Expensive! Sleeps four and nearly a thousand pounds a week in summer.