Vintage postcard of the Wolf Rock lighthouse, Cornwall
The fragile pencil of Wolf’s Rock tapering to a hostile sky, the empty miles of restless ocean...
in S.H. Burton, The coasts of Cornwall (Werner Laurie 1955)
Situated between Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, the Wolf Rock is a small plug of phonolitic lava formed during the early Cretaceous period. Fissures in the rock are said to produce a howling sound in gales, hence the name.
The current lighthouse is the fourth structure to have stood on the rock – the third was a conical marker of cast iron and concrete rubble, completed in 1848 and still visible on the jetty. Forty-one metres (135 ft) in height, the tower is constructed from 3296 tons of dovetailed granite blocks prepared at Penzance. It took eight years to build, from 1861 to 1869, due to the treacherous weather conditions that can occur between the mainland and the Isles.
In February 1948 Wolf Rock became the first ocean rock lighthouse to be resupplied by helicopter. Three keepers had been on duty in the lighthouse for 101 days (the normal shift was 60 days) and due to constant stormy weather were running seriously low on supplies.
The light, which can be seen from Land's End by day and night, has a range of 23 nautical miles and was automated in 1988.
image and quotation via here, text abridged from there and from here
