Linton Lighthouse

I had hoped today to take a photo of the Victorian Lighthouse on the Hill between Balsham and Linton in Cambridgeshire.

Sadly I was too busy serving tea, cakes and paninis in the vineyard cafe.

However, a few words about this remarkable structure will not go amiss.

Built in the late 1860's by The Marquis of Abergavenny as a response to increasing local concerns about the rise in sea-level and the imminent inundation of much of East Anglia, the Lighthouse Tower now looks out over a sea of flowering oil-seed rape.

When "The Great Fludde" of 1870 failed to materialise, the twenty ton glass prism, (which floated on a mercury base) and associated clockwork revolve mechanism, was removed and used at Dungeness.

Linton Lighthouse is notable for being the furthest away from any navigable waterway in the country.

Plans are afoot to save it for the nation.

Photos will follow.