This tall square tower stands on Gribbin Head, southwest of
Fowey on the south Cornwall coast. To all intents and purposes it looks like a
lighthouse, complete with red and white stripes, apart from one fundamental
difference – no light!
Instead it is a “daymarker” as opposed to a “nightmarker”.
The tower stands 84 feet high (25 metres), and is easily visible to sailors out
at sea, but only during daylight hours. It has been in place on the headland
since 1832.
So why was it built?
The problem was that Gribbin Head (known to locals as “The
Gribbin” looks very similar from out at sea to St Anthony Head, which is a few
miles to the west, on the eastern side of Falmouth Bay. Sailors heading for
Falmouth Harbour would naturally steer to the west of St Anthony Head, but if
they made the mistake of confusing the two headlands, they would instead sail
blindly into the shallow water of St Austell Bay to the west of Gribbin Head and
be wrecked.
This mistake was only possible in daylight, because no ships would be attempting to reach port at night, so a daymarker
was what was needed to warn them of the danger.
© John Welford
No comments:
Post a Comment