Qualla: Longstone Lighthouse

Longstone Lighthouse: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris, CC BY-SA 2.0. She was twenty-two and looking out a window. The window faced south-east, away from the storm, and through it Grace Darling saw something moving on Big Harcar rock about a mile off. The dawn was just lifting on 7 September 1838. The paddlesteamer Forfarshire had broken in two during the night somewhere out in the worst gale of the season. Grace knew none of this. She just saw shapes that should not have been there. She woke her father. They watched together for some minutes through the lighthouse's telescope until they were sure - human figures, perhaps eight or nine, alive, still on the rock. The lifeboat from North Sunderland would never be able to launch in this weather. William Darling and his daughter Grace got into their own small coble and started rowing.

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Image: Chris | CC BY-SA 2.0

Longstone Lighthouse: Why the Lighthouse Existed

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 1keyhole, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Farne Islands had killed ships for centuries before Longstone Lighthouse was built. Captain John Blackett's coal-burning beacons had marked the islands since 1778, and Trinity House had improved on them with three new oil-fuelled lighthouses in 1811. But the Brownsman Island ...

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Image: 1keyhole | CC BY-SA 4.0

Longstone Lighthouse: William Darling Moves In

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit N Chadwick, CC BY-SA 2.0. William Darling had been keeper at the Brownsman lighthouse, and he moved his family across to Longstone when it opened. His daughter Grace - born 24 November 1815 in Bamburgh, where her grandfather had been the village joiner - grew up in lighthouses. By 1838 she was twenty-two,...

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Image: N Chadwick | CC BY-SA 2.0

Longstone Lighthouse: The Forfarshire Rescue

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Parkinson, CC BY 2.0. Grace and her father reached Big Harcar rock through what survivors described as 'mountainous' seas. The Forfarshire's stern had been torn off and sunk during the night; the surviving fragment of the bow had eight crew and one passenger clinging to it, plus the bodies of a young ...

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Image: Tim Parkinson | CC BY 2.0

Longstone Lighthouse: The Light Continues

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dave Dunford, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Longstone optic has been upgraded several times. In 1873 Chance Brothers of Smethwick installed a new Fresnel lens system, maintaining the characteristic white flash every thirty seconds. In 1876 a fog siren powered by a caloric engine was added, sounding two blasts every two...

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Image: Dave Dunford | CC BY-SA 2.0