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Lighthouse lights are losing their sweep

Efficiency is gained. Poetry is lost

Lightning illuminates the night sky above the lighthouse at Portland Bill in Dorset.
A loom with a viewImage: Alamy
|Trevose, Cornwall

If a child were to draw a lighthouse they would draw Trevose. It is perfect. Round white walls above; rocky cliffs below; stormy seas beyond. And best of all is its beam. As the sun goes down the beam begins: dark-light-dark-light, all night, every night. For 110 years, Trevose’s slowly turning beam has swept the sky, the sea, the land. And now it is stopping. On October 23rd Trevose’s sweeping beam will be removed. A simpler LED light will come in its place. It will go on and off. But the moving beam will be gone.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Sweeping changes”

From the July 1st 2023 edition

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