Next to the Tower of London is 230(ish) year old building that is the headquarters of the people who look after the lighthouses.
Originally founded by King Henry VIII in 1514 to manage shipping safety along the Thames, what is today Trinity House was officially called (deep breath!)… “The Master, Wardens, and Assistants of the Guild, Fraternity, or Brotherhood of the most glorious and undivided Trinity, and of St. Clement in the Parish of Deptford-Strond in the County of Kent.
“They long decamped from Deptford to the City though — and the current building was constructed in the 1790s, and largely restored following the unexpected intervention of a German bomb in December 1940. A lot of the restoration of the building is based on a series of photos taken in 1919 for publication in the Country Life magazine, which is a rare stroke of fortune for the ill-fated building.
It is therefore within a fairly grand building of the city livery companies style, and while public tours used to be very rare, they are now a fairly regular affair.
The next tour dates are:
December 2022
- Monday 5th
- Monday 12th
January 2023
- Monday 9th
- Monday 16th
- Friday 27th
February 2023
- Friday 3rd
- Monday 6th
- Monday 13th
- Monday 20th
- Monday 27th
March 2023
- Friday 10th
- Monday 13th
- Monday 20th
Tours of Trinity House last around 75 minutes and cost £15 per person, which goes to the Trinity House charitable fund providing education and welfare services to mariners.
To book a tour, go to their website, select a date, and then send them an email with your details.
I did this tour pre-pandemic.
Very interesting and well worth the visit.
Strictly speaking they look after all the lighthouses, beacons and navigation buoys in England and Wales, with the exception of the major ports who are responsible for their own areas.
In Scotland we have the Northern Lighthouse Board which also manages the Isle of Man, and the whole of Ireland is responsibility oc the Commissioners of Irish Lights, which (like the Rugby Team ) is an all-Ireland body.