For those in peril on the sea
From our UK edition
The story — or rather, stories — of how the British lighthouses were built has already withstood heavy and repeated telling. There’s Henry Winstanley’s first Eddystone light (brick, hexagonal, candles on the outside, en-suite state room) and his Icarus boast to the gods that it would withstand ‘the greatest storm that ever was’, which it didn’t. There’s Henry Hill, the keeper who swallowed a mouthful of molten lead while the second Eddystone burned. There’s John Smeaton’s tree of stone, flawless, tiny, eroded from below, now landbound on Plymouth Hoe. And there are the old tales.
