Godrevy Island from Godrevy Head, 1970
St Ives and Clodgy in the distance.
Godrevy Island
It looks spectacularly beautiful, but it hides a grim past and an ever present danger.
The light originated with the proposals and pressure of Reverend Jeffrys Wilkins Murray, son of Captain William Murray RN.
He was born at Swansea in 1819, becoming Curate of Gwithian in 1857, and continued through an ecclesiastical career in Cornwall; Thomas Eva, born Helston 1804, was the builder of the lighthouse on Godrevy Island (designed by James Walker)
and of the lighthouse at The Lizard; other works of his were the Grylls monument at Helston and Bodmin,
and Boscawen Bridge at Truro,
as well as the church of St Martin in Meneage
(where he was the first person to have been married in it, to Clarinda Oates in 1830).
He died in 1881, having fallen from the scaffolding at Hingey Farm at Gunwalloe.
Godrevy Island (originally known as Gull Rock) is at the head of a series of rocks and reefs known as The Stones, which have taken many ships and lives; Gwithian churchyard holds the bodies of some that have perished;
a story was told of a brig which was anchored off the island, the St Ives pilots pulled alongside and stretched out to board her, as one seized the chains, he was grasping at nothing, and the ship disappeared into thin air.
The next day 17th April 1838, the brig Neptune was driven on to the ledges and was lost completely, the barest trace was found of her. The question of safety of men and ships came to a gruesome pitch on 30th November 1854.
The British and Irish Steampacket NILE, barely a year old, a modern ship with a single screw propellor, was headed on her usual route between Liverpool and London. She was headed from Liverpool, calling at ports on the way, as was her usual routine. There were signs that all would not be well on this voyage ... from London a man fell to his death on the 4th July, through the ship's engine room skylight (Matthew Heath, a Cornish miner), then the ship came into collision with Looe fishing smack William and Ann , and drowned her skipper at Plymouth; reached Liverpool through bad weather on the 26th November 1854. She set off from Liverpool through bad weather on the 28th November. She coursed for Bristol and then on past Lundy Island, where she was seen by Sylph a packet ship from Cork. What happened that night will never be known, but the Nile struck The Stones, and was badly damaged, so that in the morning her wreckage was scattered far and wide.
She had been carrying 400 tons of goods destined for Penzance and Plymouth shops, but it was all now adrift at sea.
The entire crew and passengers had been lost. Only one body was found, Hannah Lamb, and she is buried in Illogan churchyard.
Great pressure was brought to bear from the public, it was decided that Trinity House should provide a lighthouse. But this was all being decided as other ships were being lost. The Josephine , the Desdemona , the Ernest managed to limp into St Ives after striking The Stones. But the Mary Welch was lost with all hands in 1857. It was not until February 1858 that the masons arrived on Godrevy Island. It has an octagonal plan and is built of random rubble stone, mortar bedded. It was completed in March 1859, at a cost of over £7,000.
Raymond Forward
