About Smeaton's Tower

Eddystone Lighthouse is on the treacherous Eddystone Rocks, 14 km (9 miles) south west of Rame Head. The current structure is the fourth lighthouse to be built on the site. The first and second were destroyed. The third, also known as Smeaton's Tower, is the best known because of its influence on lighthouse design and its importance in the development of concrete for building. 

Civil engineer John Smeaton began construction in 1756 and the light was first lit in 1759. His novel approach was to construct a tower based on the shape of an English Oak tree for strength but made of stone rather than wood. He employed the toughest labourers, many formerly employed as Cornish Tin Miners. Press ganging had become a problem locally and to ensure that the men would be exempt from Naval Service, Trinity House arranged with the Admiralty at Plymouth to have a medal struck for each labourer to prove that they were working on the lighthouse.

Local granite was used for the foundations and facing, and Smeaton invented a quick drying cement, essential in the wet conditions on the rock, the formula for which is still used today. An ingenious method of securing each block of stone to its neighbour, using dovetail joints and marble dowels was employed, together with a device for lifting large blocks of stone from ships at sea to considerable heights which has never been improved upon. Using all these innovations, Smeaton's tower was completed and lit by twenty four candles on 16 October 1759.  While in use, Smeaton's lighthouse was 18m (59 ft) in height, and had a diameter at the base of 8m (26 ft) and at the top of 5 m (17 ft).

In the 1870's cracks appeared in the rock upon which Smeaton's lighthouse had stood for 120 years, so the top half of the tower was dismantled and re-erected on Plymouth Hoe as a monument to the builder. The foundations and stub of the old tower remain on the Eddystone Rocks, situated close to the new (and more solid) foundations of the current lighthouse. The foundations proved too strong to be dismantled so the Victorians left them where they stood  - the irony of this lighthouse is that although the previous two were destroyed, this one proved to be stronger than the rock upon which it was built and could not even be intentionally taken apart.