Spurn Head Lighthouses

Spurn Head Lighthouses

Find out all about the Spurn lighthouses. Information and history about the lighthouses at Spurn Point and the Spurn lightship...

Spurn Point or Spurn Head is a long spit of land, stretching out into the North Sea, at the mouth of the River Humber.

As you might expect, it is a lonely area - bleak and windswept - but very beautiful, and now home to a Nature Reserve...

As you might imagine, this is an area very much in need of lighthouses to protect passing ships from dangerous sandbanks, as well as ships trying to enter the River Humber, going to Hull or Goole. There has even been a lightship positioned off Spurn Head.

Although we don't have any trace of it now, the earliest reference to a lighthouse here was in 1427. Records show that William Reedbarrow (a hermit) had been granted 'dues' from passing ships, in order to complete a lighthouse here.

Early lighthouses were built on the 'then' end of Spurn Point (thought to be about 2 miles north of the current end). There have been 2 lighthouses at Spurn Point throughout much of history:

• A 'High Light' on the land 'proper'
• A 'Low Light' out on the sands

The Low Light seemed to require regular re-building, but a High Light survived until John Smeaton was commissioned to build 2 new lighthouses at Spurn Point, for Trinity House.

'Smeaton's High Light'

• Built 1776
• Lasted until 1895 when the current Spurn 'High Light' was built, as the foundations of Smeaton's High Light were beginning to collapse
• The tower of the High Light was 112ft high
• The light was visible for 12 miles

Smeaton's High Light lighthouse is not still standing, but you can still see the foundations and base, very close to the current High Light lighthouse

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