Happisburgh Lighthouse

Happisburgh Lighthouse stands on the North Norfolk coast, the only independently run lighthouse still working in Great Britain. Built in 1790 by Trinity House, it originally worked with a sister ‘low’ light to guide ships past the Haisborough Sands. The tower is painted white with three red bands and reaches 25.9 metres, its lantern 40.8 metres above sea level. The 1868 glass lantern still houses the Chance Brothers optic installed that year. The lighthouse once had a pair of gas holders behind it, built to supply a trial gas light. Its history includes experiments in the 1870s between James Nicholas Douglass’s oil light and John Richardson Wigham’s gas light. After the low light was demolished in 1884, the high light was repainted with red bands and given a flashing characteristic. The light changed from paraffin to acetylene in 1929, then to electricity in 1947, when it began its present three-flash sequence every thirty seconds. The lighthouse remains the only one in Great Britain to be managed by a local trust. Visitors find a white tower with bold red rings standing beside the North Sea. The lantern room still uses the original 1868 lens and reflectors. The surrounding cliffs show signs of coastal erosion that once claimed the low light. The site is quiet, with no permanent keepers’ cottages left on the land. The beam sweeps three white flashes across 26 kilometres of sea every half minute.