Five rock and cliff stations. Three lighthouse authorities. One set of problems: stand up, shine, be recognised, run without hands. Eddystone, Bell Rock, Skerryvore, Fastnet and South Stack, read as engineering rather than postcard.
Each sheet takes one part of the subject and works it through the same five stations. Read in order or jump to the problem at hand.
Four towers on the Eddystone reef, from Winstanley's timber to Douglass's granite. Smeaton's oak-trunk curve. Robert Stevenson's tall shaft at Bell Rock. Alan Stevenson's hyperbolic profile at Skerryvore. The cast-iron Fastnet that shook, and the granite tower that replaced it. South Stack borrowing height from a cliff.
Read sheet 01Working the tidal window. Dovetails, trenails and hydraulic lime at Eddystone. The beacon house and rock railway at Bell Rock. A barrack lost and a pit blasted at Skerryvore. Cornish granite keyed into clay slate at Fastnet. A stair and a bridge at South Stack.
Read sheet 02Candles to Argand lamps and parabolic reflectors to the Fresnel lens. Orders of apparatus by focal distance. Chance Brothers glass. Stevenson holophotal prisms. Paraffin vapour, acetylene, electric filament, LED. Clockwork drives and mercury floats.
Read sheet 03Fixed, flashing, occulting, isophase, group flashing. How lens panels and screens make the rhythm. Reading the abbreviation on an Admiralty chart. Colour sectors, elevation, geographical and nominal range. Fog signals and the bells of the Bell Rock.
Read sheet 04Three keepers on a rock, one ashore. Helidecks, lamp changers, fog detectors, telemetry. The last keepers at North Foreland, Fair Isle South and the Baily. Trinity House, the Northern Lighthouse Board and the Commissioners of Irish Lights, watching from Harwich, Edinburgh and Dún Laoghaire.
Read sheet 05Three general lighthouse authorities cover these islands. Each has a coast, a fleet and a control room. All three draw on the General Lighthouse Fund, filled by light dues charged on ships calling at ports in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
The Corporation of Trinity House, seated in London. Keeper of Eddystone and South Stack. Operations, engineering and remote monitoring run from Harwich, Essex. Also the deep-sea pilotage authority and a maritime charity.
Headquartered in Edinburgh. Keeper of Bell Rock and Skerryvore. The Stevenson family served it as engineers across several generations. Ships carry the prefix NLV; the flagship is the Pharos.
Based at Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin. Responsible for the whole island, north and south. Keeper of Fastnet and the Baily. The tender Granuaile serves offshore stations and buoyage.