Portland Bill Lighthouse is a functioning lighthouse at Portland Bill, on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, England. The lighthouse and its boundary walls are Grade II Listed. As Portland Bill's largest and most recent lighthouse, the Trinity House operated Portland Bill Lighthouse is distinctively white and red striped, standing at a height of 41 metres (135 ft). It was completed by 1906 and first shone out on 11 January 1906. The lighthouse guides passing vessels through the hazardous waters surrounding the Bill, while also acting as a waymark for ships navigating the English Channel. The two original lighthouses, now known as the Old Higher Lighthouse and Old Lower Lighthouse, operated as a pair of leading lights to guide ships between Portland Race and The Shambles sandbank. They were constructed in 1716, both rebuilt in 1869, and decommissioned following the completion of the present lighthouse. At the turn of the 20th-century, Trinity House put forward plans for building a new lighthouse at Bill Point. They acquired the required land in 1903. The builders, Wakeham Bros. of Plymouth, began work on the foundations in October 1903. Chance & Co of Birmingham supplied and fitted the lantern. A pressurised vapour paraffin lamp was used, placed at the centre of a large (first-order) revolving optic; weighing 3.5 tons, this was made up of four asymmetrical catadioptric lens panels and a concave prismatic reflector. The lighthouse was completed in 1905 at a cost of £13,000, and the lamp first lit on 11 January 1906. A red sector light was provided in addition to the main light, shining from a window in the lower part of the tower, to indicate the position of The Shambles. The light was electrified in the mid-1950s. In 1940 the lighthouse was provided with an F-type diaphone fog signal, sounding from a window part-way up the tower. Compressed air was provided to six cylindrical storage tanks by a pair of Reavell compressors, all located (together with a standby generator) within the base of the tower. These were connected at a higher level to the sounding tanks, which fed the compressed air to the diaphone itself, mounted behind its trumpet-like emitter which protruded through the window. Admission of air into the diaphone was controlled by a clockwork (later electric) coder, which caused the diaphone to sound a 3.5-second blast every 30 seconds. The 180 Hz note had an audible range of 7 nmi (13 km; 8.1 mi) (which could be doubled under favourable conditions). The diaphone remained in regular use as an aid to navigation until 1995, when it was replaced by a high-frequency electric fog signal (sounding from another window, further down) in readiness for automation. On 18 March 1996, Portland Bill Lighthouse was demanned, and all monitoring and control transferred to the Trinity House Operations & Planning Centre in Harwich. The original Type F diaphone was decommissioned in 1996, but in 2003 Trinity House restored it to occasional use for the benefit of visitors; (it was sounded regularly for half an hour on Sunday mornings, except when foggy, until 2017). In the early 21st century the lighthouse used a 1 kW MBI lamp together with the same rotating lens system that had been in use since 1906. (It flashed four times every 20 seconds with an intensity of 635,000 candelas and a range of 25 nautical miles.) The fog signal was used in times of bad weather; it gave a four-second blast every 30 seconds with a range of 2 nautical miles. In November 2018 Trinity House applied for (and obtained) planning permission to remove the lamp and optic from the lantern room as part of a programme of modernisation. It proposed relocating the lens array to the base of the tower, which led to the removal of the historic diaphone fog-signalling equipment, installed there in 1940 and still in working order, on the basis that this was 'the only available [space] for retaining the historic optic on-site'. In 2019-2020 a new non-rotating LED light source was installed in the lantern room and a new omnidirectional fog signal was installed on the exterior lantern gallery (replacing the electric emitter installed in the 1990s). The two LED lanterns (one of which is used, the other kept on standby) have a reduced range of 18 nautical miles (33 km; 21 mi). As Portland's prime attraction, the Portland Bill Lighthouse is open to the public for tours. A visitor centre is housed in the former lighthouse keeper's quarters. The original centre closed in 2013 due to lack of funding, however a new renovated centre opened in 2015. The tours operated at the lighthouse last approximately 45 minutes and visitors are able to climb the 153 steps to the top of the lighthouse.
Smeaton’s Lighthouse which was re-erected on Plymouth Hoe was the third lighthouse to be built on the Eddystone Rock marked a major step forward in lighthouse design. Following the destruction of Rudyard's Eddystone Light, Robert Weston sought advice on rebuilding the lighthouse from the Earl of Macclesfield, then President of the Royal Society. He recommended mathematical instrument maker and aspiring civil engineer, John Smeaton, who was introduced to Weston in February 1756. In May, following a series of visits to the rock, Smeaton proposed that the new lighthouse should be built of stone and modelled on the shape of an oak tree. He appointed Josias Jessop to serve as his general assistant, and established a shore base for the construction works at Millbay. Work began on the reef in August 1756, with the gradual cutting away of recesses in the rock which were designed to dovetail in due course with the foundations of the tower. During the winter, the workers stayed ashore and were employed in dressing the stone for the lighthouse; work then resumed on the rock the following June, with the laying of the first courses of stone. The foundations and outside structure were built of local Cornish granite, while lighter Portland limestone masonry was used on the inside. As part of the construction process, Smeaton pioneered 'hydraulic lime', a concrete that cured under water, and developed a technique of securing the blocks using dovetail joints and marble dowels. Work continued over the course of the following two years, and the light was first lit on 16 October 1759. Smeaton's lighthouse was 59 feet (18 m) high and had a diameter at the base of 26 feet (8 m) and at the top of 17 feet (5 m). It was lit by a chandelier of 24 large tallow candles. In 1807 the 100-year lease on the lighthouse expired, whereupon ownership and management devolved to Trinity House. From 1858 the tower's exterior was painted with broad red and white horizontal bands, so as to render it 'more distinctly visible during the day time'. In 1872 a 5 cwt fog bell was provided for the lighthouse; it was sounded 'five times in quick succession every half minute' in foggy weather. That same year an improved lamp was installed, which more than doubled the intensity of the light. In 1877 it was resolved to build a replacement lighthouse, following reports that erosion to the rocks under Smeaton's tower was causing it to shake from side to side whenever large waves hit. During construction of the new lighthouse, the Town Council of Plymouth petitioned for Smeaton's tower to be dismantled and rebuilt on Plymouth Hoe, in lieu of a Trinity House daymark which stood there. Trinity House consented to the removal and delivery of the lantern and the upper four rooms of the tower, the cost of labour to be borne by Plymouth Council. While the new tower was being built the old lighthouse remained operational, up until 3 February 1882 (after which a temporary fixed light was shown from the top of the new tower). When the latter was complete, Smeaton's lighthouse was decommissioned and the crane which had been used to build the new lighthouse was transferred to the task of dismantling the old. William Tregarthen Douglass supervised the operation. The upper part of Smeaton's lighthouse was subsequently rebuilt, as planned, on top of a replica granite frustum on Plymouth Hoe: preserved 'as a monument to Smeaton's genius, and in commemoration of one of the most successful, useful and instructive works ever accomplished in civil engineering'. The rebuilding was funded by public subscription. It remains in place today and, as 'Smeaton's Tower', is open to the public as a tourist attraction. The original frustum or base of the tower also survives, standing where it was built on the Eddystone rocks, 120 feet (37 m) from the current lighthouse. Having dismantled the upper part of the structure, Douglass infilled the old entrance way and stairwell within the frustum and fixed an iron mast to the top of the stub tower. He expressed the hope that 'the rock below will for ages endure to support this portion of Smeaton's lighthouse, which, in its thus diminished form, is still rendering important service to the mariner, in giving a distinctive character to the Eddystone by day'.
