Click yourself onto the Google homepage today and you’ll see a dramatic black-and-white sketch of a lighthouse in choppy waters.
Today Google Doodle is celebrating the 321st anniversary of the First Lighting of Eddystone Lighthouse.
Eddystone lighthouse is situated near the mouth of the English Channel, in one of the world’s most dangerous stretches of water.
The Eddystone reef is infamous for causing a high number of shipwrecks over the years.
So today the search engine is celebrating the first time a lighthouse was built in order to limit the number of accidents, on November 14, 1698.
What is the Eddystone Lighthouse?
Eddystone Lighthouse is located nine miles to the south of Rame Head in Cornwall. But the one we see today is actually the fourth structure to be built on the rocks.
The rocks surrounding the lighthouse are almost completely submerged during high tide – making them invisible and treacherous to navigators.
Because it is located in a highly trafficked area, close to the mouth of the English channel and a major port, it has claimed many ships.
But the building which aims to guide ships safely has a rocky history itself. A number of storms and fires destroyed the previous buildings.
It is the first lighthouse that was built which is the subject of the Google Doodle. It was an octagonal wooden tower built by Henry Winstanley.
The English merchant had invested in several ships that had sunk at Eddystone.
Construction began in 1696, but it was delayed for two years because he was taken prisoner. However, King Louis XIV eventually released him, sating: “France is at war with England, not with humanity”.
The first light wound contained 60 candles and a “great hanging lamp” to warn those at sea to stay clear.
Despite Winstanley believing the lighthouse could withstand anything, it was destroyed during the Great Storm of 1703.
Winstanley was at the lighthouse at the time, but no trace was found of him or the five other men.
Even though it was destroyed, it was recognised how important it was to build a lighthouse on the treacherous site.
John Rudyard designed a new lighthouse in 1708, which combined concrete and brick core with a wooden exertion.
It survived until December 2, 1755 when a lantern inside caused a devastating fire.
The third lighthouse was designed by John Smeaton, England’s “Father of Civil Engineering”.
The oak tree and cement building was finished in 1756, but waves caused erosion in 1877 and it was dismantled.
James Nicholas Douglass devised plans for the fourth lighthouse, and chose a different rock to construct it on.
It shone its like for the first time in 1882, and renders light visible for 22 nautical miles.
Today it has a helicopter pad on top, which makes it safer to access than by boat.
