Monkstone Lighthouse

Lavernock is a small coastal hamlet in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, lying between Penarth and Sully on the Bristol Channel. The shore here is marked by steep cliffs and wide tidal bays where the water retreats far at low tide. A single lane leads down to the point, passing a stone hut once used by Guglielmo Marconi for his wireless experiments. The headland itself juts into the channel with strong tidal streams that can exceed 13 kilometres per hour. Views stretch across to the Somerset coast on clear days. The place is worth visiting for the part it played in the birth of radio. In May 1897 Marconi and Post Office engineer George Kemp sent the first wireless messages over open sea between Lavernock Point and Flat Holm island. The first Morse signals read “ARE YOU READY” and “CAN YOU HEAR ME,” answered by “YES LOUD AND CLEAR.” A bronze plaque inside St Lawrence church marks the fiftieth anniversary of these tests. The stone hut where Marconi worked still stands on the cliff edge near Lower Cosmeston farmhouse. A dinosaur fossil found nearby, Dracoraptor hanigan, is now displayed in Cardiff’s National Museum. Visitors find a quiet headland with few buildings and long views over the water. The cliffs expose bands of blue-grey limestone and mudstone laid down 200 million years ago. Fossil oysters and ammonites can be spotted in the rocks. At low tide a causeway appears to Sully Island, once a popular holiday spot served by steam trains. The lane ends at the old Marconi hut, a simple stone shed with a low door and a single window. From here the Bristol Channel stretches to the horizon, its tides shaping the shore below.