Old Hunstanton Lighthouse

In 1663 permission was sought by a consortium of the merchants and ship-owners of Boston and Lynn to erect one or more lights near St Edmund's Point, to help guide their vessels into The Wash.[9] That November, a warrant was issued by Charles II to John Knight, permitting him to build a light or lights 'upon the Hunston-cliffe or chappel lands', and to maintain them by levying dues on passing ships.[9] The first lights, a pair of stone towers which functioned as leading lights, were built by him in 1665, at a cost of over £200.[10] The front light of the pair was candle-lit; the rear had a coal-fired brazier. They were found to be 'of great benefit'.[11]

In 1710 it was reported that the lighthouses were 'decayed and want repairing and will admit of great alterations and improvements'.[11] That same year Knight's niece Rebecca and her husband James Everard, a Lynn banker, were granted the right to receive the light dues for the period of the next fifty years.[9] Substantial repairs were undertaken.

In the 18th century the lighthouses were sometimes known as the 'Chapel Lights'.[12]

In around 1776 the rear lighthouse of the pair was destroyed by a fire. Its replacement, topped by a glass lantern room, was equipped with parabolic reflectors and oil lamps in place of a coal fire.[10] Hunstanton is said to have been the first lighthouse in the world to be fitted with a parabolic reflector (though similar claims are made for Hutchinson's lighthouses in Liverpool);[9] it was devised and installed by Ezekiel Walker of Lynn, who later advised the Northern Lighthouse Board on installing parabolic reflectors in their towers around the coast of Scotland.[13] As described in 1812, the light was provided by eighteen lamps set within 18-inch (460 mm) diameter reflectors 'fixed upon two shelves, one placed over the other'; the lamps were arranged so as to direct the greatest concentration of light in a north by east direction, indicating to far-off vessels a way through sands and shoals off the Lincolnshire coast.[13] Writing some fifty years after they were installed, Walker described them as follows: 'Each of the reflectors at Hunstanton contains 700 small mirrors of looking-glass, every one of which reflects part of the light of the small lamp placed in its focus'.[14] The light was described in 1781 as 'constant and certain' and 'clearly distinguished at sea at a distance of seven leagues'.[10]

The two lighthouses are shown on John Cary's county map of 1787;[15] but only one on his map of 1794.[16] 19th-century descriptions only mention the one lighthouse. According to John Purdy it was 30 feet (9.1 m) high, placing the light at 85 feet (26 m) above sea level.[17] (It is still referred to by Purdy, in 1838, as 'the Chapel Light, on Hunstanton Point').

In 1840 a new lighthouse, designed by James Walker, was built by William Candler of Lynn; it was first lit on 3 September of that year.[5] It was a white-painted cylindrical brick tower, 63 feet (19 m) high, which placed the light at an elevation of 109 feet (33 m) above sea level;[5] In place of the multiple lamps and reflectors, a single three-wick oil lamp was installed, set within a sizeable (second-order) fixed catadioptric optic, designed by J. Cookson & co. of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.[18] The lighthouse initially displayed a fixed white light as before; but from 1844 a red sector was added to the light, indicating the position of the Roaring Middle shoal.[6] The light had a range of 16 nautical miles (30 km; 18 mi).[5]

The new lighthouse was flanked by a pair of two-storey gabled houses for the keepers, which were connected by castellated wings to the lighthouse itself.[19] The cost of building the tower and the dwellings together came to £2,696 13s 3d.[5]

In 1883 Hunstanton Lighthouse was altered to display a group occulting light (the lamp being eclipsed twice for two seconds apiece, every thirty seconds).[20][21] In 1897 the tower was repainted red, with a broad white stripe.[22]

The present lighthouse ceased operations in 1921,[23] and the lantern storey was removed from the top of the tower the following year.[24] To compensate for its closure, improvements were made to the light of the Inner Dowsing lightvessel.[25]

In 1922 the lighthouse was sold at auction for £1,300.[26] Between 1934 and 1957 the tower was used as an observation post by the Royal Observer Corps.[27] Since then it has been a private residence and a Holiday Let. The two keepers' houses remained in place until at least the early 1960s,[19] since when one has been demolished, and a modern annexe added to the other.