St Tudwal’s

In 1845, William Harries, clerk to the Justice of Peace for Pembrokeshire had responded to an enquiry from the clerk of the Parliamentary Lighthouse Committee stating 'I have had communications with the most influential master mariners and other persons connected with shipping in this vicinity, and their unanimous opinion is that a great loss of life and property annual takes placed for want of some harbour of refuge, and of course, a lighthouse connected with it, on the whole of the Welsh coast from St David's Head to Bardsey Island'. St Tudwal's lighthouse was built as a response to the continuing petitions by Welsh mariners using the smaller mid-Wales ports of Cardigan Bay, such as Porthmadog. St Tudwal's is one of the 'inner' lights along the Welsh coast - the Skerries and Smalls forming the 'outer' lights for the vast flow of 18th and 19th century empire trade heading for Liverpool. Its mode of operation is noted on an historic chart 'Light occulting every 10 second, 151 ft, visible 18miles. Lower light flashing red, 135ft, visisble 17 miles.'

The site of the lighthouse was purchased by Trinity House in 1876 for the sum of £111, and the construction of the tower and dwellings completed the following year. A Chance Brothers second-order fixed occulting lens with a red sector was installed, the first such lens built by the firm.

In 1922 the light was converted to acetylene operation and was operated by means of a Sun Valve. This mechanism—invented by Swedish lighthouse engineer Gustaf Dalén—consists of an arrangement of reflective gold-plated copper bars supporting a suspended black rod; when lit by the sun the black rod absorbs the direct heat and that reflected from the other bars and expands downwards thereby cutting off the supply of gas.

Following the introduction of the acetylene equipment the lighthouse was demanned and the keepers’ dwellings subsequently sold in 1935.

St. Tudwal’s Lighthouse was modernised and converted to solar-powered operation in 1995. The lighthouse is now monitored and controlled from Trinity House’s Planning Centre in Harwich, Essex.

In 2021, further improvements were made to the lighthouse. The new LED light source was installed inside of the existing optic and the red filter material replaced to ensure the sectors remain within the IALA specification for a red navigation light. The efficiencies created by this latest aid to navigation technology allows the station to be supported year round with just two large solar panels and 20 buoy batteries.