Souter Lighthouse

Souter Lighthouse stands on Lizard Point, a high cliff three miles south of the River Tyne’s mouth in South Tyneside. It was the first lighthouse in the world built for alternating electric current, using a carbon arc lamp first lit in January 1871. Designed by James Douglass for Trinity House, the complex includes a tower, engine room, boiler house and five keepers’ cottages built of rubble masonry. The site was chosen for its height, giving better visibility than the intended Souter Point a mile away. A red band was painted on the tower in 1891 to make it stand out by day. After service ended in 1988, the National Trust took over, opening it to visitors and offering holiday lets. The lighthouse was built to stop the forty-four wrecks a year on Whitburn Steel’s hidden reefs. In 1860 alone twenty ships were lost, making this coast the most dangerous in the country. The electric light, powered by Holmes’ magneto generators driven by Whitworth steam engines, could be seen for twenty-six miles. A revolving lens array flashed once every thirty seconds, while a red and white sector warned of hazards south of Sunderland Bay. A reed foghorn sounded every forty-five seconds, later replaced by a siren in 1879. Visitors walk through the quadrangle of stone buildings to the tower base. Inside, the 1870 optic still turns on mercury, though the light now uses oil lamps installed in 1914. The lantern holds a four-and-a-half-tonne lens system that once flashed red every five seconds. Below, the old engine room shows the generators and steam engines that once powered the arc lamp. From the top, views stretch to St Mary’s Lighthouse six miles north and along the rugged Durham coastline.