CHAP. III. WINSTANLEY'S AND RUDYERD'S LIGHTHOUSES. 19 



part of the lighthouse forty feet, to keep it well out 

 of the wash of the sea. This timber erection, when 

 finished, somewhat resembled a Chinese pagoda, with 

 open galleries and numerous fantastic projections. The 

 main gallery under the light was so wide and open, that 

 an old gentleman who remembered both Mr. Winstanley 

 and his lighthouse, afterwards told Mr. Smeaton, that it 

 was " possible for a six-oared boat to be lifted up on a 

 wave, and driven clear through the open gallery into the 

 sea on the other side." In the perspective print of the 

 lighthouse, published by the architect after its erection, 

 he complacently represented himself as fishing out of the 

 kitchen-window ! 



When Winstanley had brought his work to completion, 

 he is said to have expressed himself so satisfied as to its 

 strength, that he only wished he might be there in the 

 fiercest storm that ever blew. In this wish he was not 

 disappointed, though the result was directly the reverse 

 of its builder's anticipations. In November, 1703, Win- 

 stanley went off to the lighthouse to superintend some 

 repairs which had become necessary, and he was still in 

 the place with the lightkeepers, when, on the night of 

 the 26th, a storm of unparalleled fury burst along the 

 coast. As day broke on the morning of the 27th, people 

 on shore anxiously looked in the direction of the rock to 

 see if Winstanley 's structure had withstood the fury of 

 the gale ; but not a vestige of it remained. The light- 

 house and its builder had been swept completely away. 



The building had, in fact, been deficient in every 

 element of stability, and its form was such as to render 

 it peculiarly liable to damage from the violence both of 

 wind and water. " Nevertheless," as Smeaton generously 

 observes, " it was no small degree of heroic merit in Win- 

 stanley to undertake a piece of work which had before 

 been deemed impracticable, and, by the success which 

 attended his endeavours, to show mankind that the erec- 

 tion of such a building was not in itself a thing of that 



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