Beavertail Lighthouse (RI) perimeter road to close permanently
The closing to vehicles of the perimeter road by the lighthouse at Beavertail State Park in Jamestown, Rhode Island, goes into effect on Monday. Rhode Island state environmental leaders say they’re making the change because of the rising sea level, and they need to plan for the future. You’ll have to use more foot power to get to the Beavertail Lighthouse starting Feb. 3.
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Old Trinidad Head Lighthouse (CA) open on Saturday for rare tour
Trinidad Head Lighthouse will be open to visitors between 10 a.m. and noon on Saturday, Feb. 1, courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management, Trinidad Museum and the Cher-ae Heights Indian Community of the Trinidad Rancheria.
Pedestrians only. No vehicular access. It is a fine work-out for those not participating in the Trinidad Clam Beach Run. Follow the black-top road to where the metal gate is open and continue to the southwest point on Trinidad Head. The lighthouse is 175 feet above sea level.
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Cabana-inspired hotel planned near Nubble Lighthouse in York, Maine
The owners of the Viewpoint Hotel near Nubble Lighthouse are seeking permission for a major expansion that would add 16 hotel rooms, a restaurant and more to the property. “There’s a lot of history around that rock,” Chris Reynolds, managing member of Wow Design Group, said. “I grew up actually in the summers eating ice creams on that rock. It’s a very special place.”
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The Experimental Lighthouse, an unusual landmark in London
In the East London borough of Tower Hamlets, where the River Thames meets the River Lea, an unusual landmark stands: the city’s only remaining lighthouse at Trinity Buoy Wharf. Designed and built between 1864 and 1866 by Sir James Douglass, the Experimental Lighthouse, as it is known, never functioned as a traditional lighthouse. Instead, it was used as a laboratory to test maritime lighting equipment and train new lighthouse keepers. Located next to the workshop of British physicist and chemist Michael Faraday, whose discoveries pioneered electrolysis, this little-known London landmark is also where Faraday first started experimenting with electric lighting for lighthouses.
Wikimedia Commons photo by Cmglee
These days, the site’s lantern room doubles as a concert venue for Longplayer, a 1,000-year-long musical composition made with Tibetan singing bowls. Conceived by British musician Jem Finer of the band The Pogues, the score was designed to be performed continuously and without repetition for 365,243 days – slightly more than a millennium – and if it succeeds, it will become the longest piece of music in history.
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U.S. Lighthouse Society News is produced by the U.S. Lighthouse Society to support lighthouse preservation, history, education and research.
If you have items of interest to the lighthouse community and its supporters, please email them to Jeremy at Jeremy@uslhs.org
U.S. Lighthouse Society Historian Jeremy D’Entremont is the author of 24 books and hundreds of articles on lighthouses and maritime history. He is a past president of the American Lighthouse Foundation and founder of Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouses, and he has lectured and narrated cruises throughout the Northeast and in other regions. He is also the producer and host of the U.S. Lighthouse Society’s weekly podcast, “Light Hearted.” He can be emailed at Jeremy@uslhs.org