Lundy Island (Old Light)

Foundations for a lighthouse on Lundy were laid in 1787, but the first lighthouse (now known as the Old Light) was not built until Trinity House obtained a 999-year lease in 1819. The 97-foot (30-metre) granite tower, on the summit of Chapel Hill, was designed by Daniel Asher Alexander, and built by Joseph Nelson at a cost of £36,000. Because the site, Beacon Hill, is 469 ft (143 m) above sea level, the highest base for a lighthouse in Britain, the light was often obscured by fog. To counter this problem, a Fog Signal Battery, equipped with a pair of 18-pound guns, was built about 1861; guncotton rockets replaced these fog signal guns in 1878.

The lighthouse had two lights: the lower a fixed white light and the upper a quick flashing white light, showing every 60 seconds (both lights were provided by Argand lamps fitted with parabolic reflectors). The flashing characteristic was an innovation at the time, however, the speed of revolution gave the impression it was a fixed light with no flashes detectable. This, combined with poor visibility, may have contributed to the grounding, at Cefn Sidan, of the La Jeune Emma, bound from Martinique to Cherbourg in 1828. 13 of the 19 on board drowned, including Adeline Coquelin, the 12-year-old niece of Napoleon Bonaparte's divorced wife Joséphine de Beauharnais. The following year the lower light was moved from a window part-way down the tower into a new lantern room at the base of the tower, with the hope that this would be less affected by fog.

Ongoing attempts were made to improve the quality of the main light. In 1842 a new rotating optic was installed: manufactured by Cookson & Co. of Newcastle, it combined dioptric lenses with mirrors and displayed a white flash every two minutes. This arrangement was replaced in 1857 by a large (first-order) 8-sided revolving catadioptric optic manufactured by Chance Brothers giving the light a range (in fine weather) of over 30 nautical miles (55 kilometres).(The following year, the dioptric section of the old 1842 optic was refurbished and installed in South Bishop Lighthouse.) Further attempts at improvement were made in 1889,when the frequency of the flash was increased to once every minute from once every two.

Owing to the ongoing complaints about the difficulty of sighting the light in fog, the lighthouse was abandoned in 1897 when the North and South Lundy lighthouses were built. The Old Light and the associated keepers' houses are kept open by the Landmark Trust.