Henry Winstanley was an eccentric showman and inventor who lost two ships on the jagged Eddystone rocks. Convinced he could conquer the Atlantic, he erected an elaborate wooden pagoda in 1698, complete with luxury bedrooms, bay windows, and gilded candle brackets.
He famously declared he wished to be inside the tower during the greatest storm the world had ever seen. On the night of 26 November 1703, the Great Storm of Britain struck. When dawn broke over Plymouth Sound, the rock was bare. Tower, keepers, and Winstanley had vanished into the foam.
It took John Smeaton in 1759 to revolutionize civil engineering by modeling his stone tower on the taper of an English oak tree, locking granite blocks together with dovetail joints and pozzolanic water-cured cement.
Alfred explains Smeaton’s design laid the foundation for modern lighthouse engineering across the globe.