Wyre Light
Coordinates: 53 ° 57 ′ 9.1 ″ N , 3 ° 1 ′ 47.9 ″ W.
Wyre Light is a disused lighthouse in Morecambe Bay off Fleetwood , Lancashire , England . The lighthouse was originally known as the Port Fleetwood Lighthouse .
After the lighthouse on Maplin Sands in the Thames Estuary , this was the second lighthouse designed by engineer Alexander Mitchell . The lighthouse is on the North Warf Bank 2.3 miles off the coast of Fleetwood. In the ever-changing surface of the sandbar a conventional lighthouse could not be built, so Mitchell's invention came here the screw carrier (English screw-pile ), in which the support is screwed into the ground, probably came the first time used. The lighthouse rests on seven such girders, which are sunk some 4 m (13 feet) into the ground, supporting a platform with the lighthouse keeper's house and the beacon. Construction began on November 15, 1839, and the tower was put into operation on June 6, 1840. The beacon was damaged in a fire in 1948, the tower then remained unmanned and was replaced by a light buoy in 1979. The beacon, located 14 m above mean water level, indicated the entry into the channel of the mouth of the Wyre and is supported by the two lighthouses Beach Lighthouse and Pharos Lighthouse on the mainland in Fleetwood. The light of the two lighthouses on land shows the position of the Wyre Light when it is exactly on top of each other up to a distance of 22 km from the coast.
An application for recognition of the lighthouse as a monument was rejected in 2012.
Web links
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- Wyre Light on PastScape by English Heritage
- Alexander Mitchell (1780-1868) Belfast's blind engineer on History Ireland .
- FJ Bigger, Alexander Mitchell, the famous blind engineer of Belfast , Belfast, 1907.
- Alan J. Lutenegger, Historical development of iron screw-pile foundations, 1836-1900 in: International Journal for the History of Engineering & Technology (Newcomen Society) 81, January 2011, pp. 108-28.