Heugh Lighthouse

The Heugh Lighthouse stands on The Headland in Hartlepool, a low rocky peninsula on the Durham coast. The present tower is a white-painted steel cylinder, fifty-four feet high, built in 1927. It replaced an earlier sandstone lighthouse of 1847 that had been the first in the world to use gas lighting. That first tower was seventy-three feet tall and showed a fixed beam visible eighteen miles out to sea. A subsidiary red light marked the state of the tide, while a red day mark warned mariners during daylight. The lighthouse was worth the journey for its part in the growth of Hartlepool as a coal port. In 1844 mariners complained about the lack of lights on this dangerous stretch of coast. Trinity House ordered a new lighthouse the following year, built at a cost of £3,200. The lens was the last made by Cookson & Co. of Newcastle before their takeover. During the First World War the tower obstructed coastal defences after the German raid on Hartlepool, so it was dismantled in 1915. Visitors find the lighthouse still in operation under PD Ports. It displays two white flashes every ten seconds from its white-painted steel tower. Nearby stands a former fog signal building and a radio room for HM Coastguard. The old optic and lantern from the 1847 lighthouse are now in the Museum of Hartlepool. A short walk leads to the Pilot Pier, where a wooden lighthouse of 1899 shows a green flash every three seconds to guide ships into the harbour.