Tuesday 13 October 2015

Needle Navigation

Known locally as simply 'The Needle' this is the only survivor of 13 navigation beacons build in the 19th Century (c1875) to lead ships in the port of Barrow in Furness. The brickwork is red and yellow but the June flowers are outdoing the structure for yellowness.  Its official title is Leading Light Number 4 and the  66 feet (20m) needle rises on the foreshore at Rampside.  Originally one of the other towers would have been nearby on the Island of Foulney, a low lying shingle spit home to nesting birds which can be walked to at low tide
on an old shingle and rock causeway
and is somewhere in the middle distance to the left of the Needle in this photograph. Piel Island and its castle can be glimpsed on the horizon to the right.  What a pity there is no time machine to journey back in time and see the glow of 13 beacons shining out in a dark 19th Century sky warning and guiding ships as they thread their way through channels, past sandbanks, islands and shingle spits safely into port.


An entry for ABCWednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at N here
  

10 comments:

Gigi Ann said...

How interesting. It would have been a sight to behold, for sure.

Reader Wil said...

Yes, a timemachine would be very interesting!
Thanks for this post!
Wil, ABCW Team

Indrani said...

This is new to me. I hope the structure is preserved well.
Happy ABCW!

Unknown said...

Hi

Some 'buildings' can always speake to one imagination... like this one does!

Have a nice abc-day / -week
♫ M e l ☺ d y ♫ (abc-w-team)

Roger Owen Green said...

NICE bit of history
ROG, ABCW

Su-sieee! Mac said...

Interesting. It causes me to wonder if the Easter Island statues were the same things. Maybe they were all brought to the island because they were old and in disrepair.
The View from the Top of the Ladder

Carin Diaz said...

Amazing it is still up after many years.
http://www.36hourworkweek.com/2015/10/me-name-i-call-myself-nurse.html

Mascha said...

What a famous old building! Thanks for showing.
Greetings from Germany

To your question: It is a narrow gauge railway: "Harzer Schmalspurbahn".

Ira said...

illustrated Informative piece! Thanks for sharing.

Liesbethblogt said...

What a nice info! Never saw something like those!