LIGHTHOUSES OF THE WORLD
Marie-Haude Arzur – £19.99
1408106353
There’s something endlessly captivating about lighthouses, which have enchanted men (and women) for centuries. The Great Lighthouse at Pharos (a small island just off the coast of Alexandria, which acted as a marker at the mouth of the harbour) was not only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but has also given its name to the “collecting” of lighthouses – pharology – and maybe this new book could be considered a collector’s guide.
As was reported this summer, the Princess Royal – appropriately enough for an Elder Brother of Trinity House - has made it a personal mission to visit each of the 209 lighthouses that illuminate the Scottish Coast, in the same way that some walkers set out to climb every one of Scotland’s 284 Munros, so maybe a copy needs to go to her?
Lighthouses are dotted throughout literature – Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse being the most obvious example. They feature in tales of valour, as evidenced by the tales of Grace Darling and innumerable other unsung heroes - and TE Lawrence applied to be a lighthouse-keeper before he became Lawrence of Arabia.
As is obvious from a mere flick through this book – which is appropriately tall to do best justice to its subject matter – lighthouses come in all shapes and sizes: the 16th century Torre de Belem in Lisbon seems as if it should be a castle; New London Ledge in Connecticut resembles a red brick Customs House; Mexico’s Venustiano Carranza appears to be a church; Pointe au Pere in Canada could be an old-fashioned spaceship; and the Pepper Pot on the Isle of Wight looks like (surprise, surprise) a pepper-pot. My personal favourite, possibly because it looks most like the quintessential lighthouse of imagination with its black and white barley-sugar stripes, is the one at Cape Hatteras on the Outer Banks in North Carolina, and it has quite a history. (Re)built in 1861 after the American Civil War, the encroaching sea was taking its toll and so it was moved in 1999 (at a cost of $12m) some 800m back from the coast – a quite remarkable feat of engineering.
The 150+ edifices in this volume span five continents and are representative of nearly 7500 lighthouses that guide mariners throughout the world. Each one is identified by year of construction, height, accessibility and ‘light signature’ – whether flashing white, red or green and in what configuration. Each of the photographic entries is accompanied by succinct details on its history and characteristics – and the sheer diversity of featured buildings makes this a most attractive publication.