I bet I’m not alone in my endless fascination for lighthouses… I have this fantasy of staying in one and curling up with a good read while the sea lashes outside…
This was a really great meandering non-fiction book, blending serious historical research and engineering with a personal, travel-inflected journey. Nancollas takes us on a tour of Britain and Ireland’s sea-bound rock lighthouses, from the earliest pioneering towers to later granite giants, exploring both their engineering and human stories.
I found the engineering history especially fascinating and mind-boggling. It’s hard to conceive the kind of feats required to build these massive structures on slippery rocks in the open sea: the dovetailed blocks, the techniques to anchor towers, the months (or years) of work by stonemasons exposed to storms and tides living in rickety, almost mythical structures out in the sea. What people achieved under such conditions is almost unimaginable, and you can’t help but snort in recognition when it comes to all the political, inefficient bureaucratic crap that comes with building projects like these.
Nancollas gives space to the builders, engineers, keepers: the human lives that revolved around these sentinels. Through their stories, the book connects architecture, heritage, and identity in a way that feels alive. You also get an appreciation for the power and character of the sea.
Lighthouses are a lens for broader reflections: our relationship with the sea, how we value heritage, how structures once built for necessity become anachronistic.
I think the executions by sea on the Scilly Isles rocks and the tense stand-offs between the Irish and Northern Irish border in a straits that also housed a lighthouse are some of the most memorable bits for me.
A fascinating read.
One word: awe-inspiring.
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