EDDYSTOKE LIGHTHOUSE. loo 



the mariner, rendered the attempt to erect a Lighthouse upon them a 

 difficult enterprise. This task was at last undertaken by a Mr. Winstanley, 

 of Little Bury, in Essex, a gentleman of fortune, but not a regular bred 

 engineer or architect; and was more than four years in building. " Not," 

 says the builder, " for the greatness of the work, but for the difficulty 

 and danger of getting backwards and forwards to the place. The 

 difficulties were many and the dangers not less, for these rocks, lying 12 

 miles from the land, are surrounded by a deep and troubled ocean, which 

 covers the greater part of them, and, whenever it blows hard, rolls over 

 them with resistless fury ; hence it is impossible to bring a boat close 

 to them, or to land on them, except in perfectly calm weather." At 

 length, in the third year, all the work was raised, which, to the weather- 

 cock at top, was 80 feet in height. Being all finished, with the lantern 

 and all the rooms that were in it, they ventured to lodge there soon after 

 Midsummer, for the greater dispatch of the work. But the first night 

 the weather became bad, and continued stormy so long, that it was 1 1 

 days before any boats could come near them again; and not being 

 acquainted with the height of the sea rising, they were almost all the 

 time drenched with wet, and their provisions in as bad a condition, 

 though they worked night and day to make a shelter for themselves. In 

 this storm they lost some of their materials, although they did what they 

 could to save them ; but the boat then returning, they all left the 

 Lighthouse to be refreshed on shore, and as soon as the weather 

 permitted they returned again and finished all ; the light was put up on 

 the 14th November, 1698, which being so late in the year, it was not 

 till within three days of Christmas that they had relief to go on shore, 

 being at the last extremity for want of provisions. 



The fourth year, finding in the winter the effect the sea had upon the 

 house, the waves rolling over the lantern at times, although more than 

 60 feet high, Mr. Winstanley, early in the spring, surrounded the 

 building with a new work of 4 feet thickness from the foundation, 

 making all solid near twenty feet high, and taking down the upper part 

 of the building, and enlarging every part of it in proportion, he raised it 

 forty feet higher than it was at first; and yet the sea, in time of storm, flew, 

 in appearance, a hundred feet above the weather-cock ; and at times 

 covered half the side of the house and lantern as if they had been under 

 water ! On the finishing of this building it was generally said, that in 

 the time of hard weather, such was the height of the sea, that it was 

 very possible for a six oared boat to be lifted up upon a wave and driven 

 through the open gallery of the light-house. In November, 1703 the 



