Lost at sea

The latest WebUrbanist post has combined two of my favourite subjects - abandonments and lighthouses. Lost at sea - 7 beautiful abandoned lighthouses "Lighthouse architecture is captivating, lighthouses have always occupied a special place in storytelling lore. They still serve as beautiful and captivating landmarks. These seven abandoned and inactive lighthouses represent marine history, and stand as beacons to what was."

This pic from the post is of Drum Point Lighthouse, Patuxent River, Maryland. Built in 1883, this screwpile lighthouse was built offshore in ten feet of water. Over the years extensive shoaling has occurred and the light eventually found itself on dry land. The lighthouse was acquired by the Calvert County Historical Society in the 1974 and moved to its present location two miles upriver of the Calvert Marine Museum, where it is open to the public.

The look of the Drum Point light reminiscent of the South Channel Pile Light in Port Phillip Bay. The single-storey octagonal structure, about 9 metres across stands on timber piles in the water, the only one of its kind still intact in Australia. The structure included a living room with a fireplace and chimney, a bedroom with 4 bunks and an inspector's office/store room. Established in 1874, the light operated for 111 years until 1985. The structure quickly deteriorated due to lack of maintenance and vandalism. In 1998, Parks Victoria restored it & returned it on new piles adjacent to the Rye Channel 3kms from its original location.

Also the screwpile design of Drum Point reminded me of the screwpile Cape Jaffa lighthouse which was established in 1872 to protect ships from the treacherous currents that had seen the demise of many ships on the dangerous Margaret Brock Reef offshore from Robe & Kingston. In 1973 the Cape Jaffa light was extinguished, it was decided to dismantle the lighthouse and replace it with a beacon on the platform. The National Trust of South Australia lobbied for the lighthouse to be re-erected on land at Kingston, which took from 1974 to 1976, and it is now a museum.

The lighthouse museum at Kingston

Above the lighthouse on Margaret Brock Reef
Below the platform today home to a bird colony

My only concern with the post was how could you limit it to only seven! There have to be more than Seven Beautiful Abandoned Lighthouses in Australia alone!

Here's a few I've visited






Eddystone Point in Tasmania was built and first exhibited in 1889, like its famous namesake off the English coast Eddystone is an elegant granite tower of 35metres. the Point is also the northern end of the "Bay of fires".









Another classic tower is the Cape du Couedic light on Kangaroo Island, built in 1909 of local quarried stone.









Griffiths Island at Port Fairy. this bluestone tower was built in 1859 on Rabbit Island, which has since joined the larger Griffiths Island.


Cape St George near Jervis Bay, the light was built in 1860, unfortunately about 2kms from where it was planned, so that the light never functioned as intended, though it was lit for 40 years. In 1913 the Navy used the tower for target practice!



Though technically never a lighthouse, Boyds Tower was built by entrepreneur Ben Boyd in 1846 on the southern side of Twofold Bay. It functioned as a lookout tower for whale spotting and was never lit. Built of sandstone BOYD is still etched on the parapet.