Smeaton and Lighthouses: A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and SequelAnonymous
History
Smeaton and Lighthouses: A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel
Anonymous
Lighthouses; Smeaton, John, 1724-1792
In the solid masonry of the platform is the fuel-store; over this is
the great hall, twenty-two feet square with an arched roof twenty feet
high. On this floor are also two wardrobes and other conveniences.
Over the hall is the king’s apartment, twenty-one feet square, with an
elliptical roof twenty feet in height. This floor has also a
vestibule, two wardrobes, &c. The third floor contains the chapel, in
which a priest occasionally performs mass. Its diameter is twenty-one
feet, and from the floor to the centre of the dome-roof the height is
forty feet. It is highly adorned with mosaic, and is lighted by eight
lantern windows. In the crown of the dome-roof is a circular opening
surrounded by a balustrade, through which is seen the ornamental roof
of the room above. This room is fourteen feet in diameter and
twenty-seven feet high; it is used as a watch-room by the
light-keepers, and was probably intended as a place to which they
could be admitted to hear prayers or mass on the occasion of a royal
visit. Over this room is an apartment capable of containing a stock of
fuel sufficient for one night’s consumption, and is so constructed as
to be convertible into a room for the exhibition of a light, in case
of accident or repairs being required in the main light-room. This is
situated over the store-room just referred to, and is surrounded by a
balcony and a circular stone parapet. The original lantern, or
light-room, was constructed for the combustion of oak wood, exposed
in a kind of chauffer raised six feet above the floor. The room was
not glazed, so that the smoke was carried out sideways in the
direction of the wind. The roof was furnished with a sort of chimney
in the shape of a spire, which terminated the building with a ball.
The whole light-room was of stone, and its height to the top of the
spire-funnel was thirty-one feet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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