Seashaken Houses : A Lighthouse History from Eddystone to Fastnet

Author: Nancollas, Tom

The arts

Published on 1 August 2019 by Penguin Books Ltd.

'A thrilling celebration of lighthouses' i newspaperAn enthralling history of Britain's rock lighthouses, and the people who built and inhabited themLighthouses are enduring monuments to our relationship with the sea.

They encapsulate a romantic vision of solitary homes amongst the waves,

but their original purpose was much more noble, conceived as

navigational gifts for the safety of all. Still today, we depend upon

their guiding lights for the safe passage of ships. Nowhere is this

truer than in the rock lighthouses of Great Britain and Ireland: twenty

towers built between 1811 and 1904, so-called because they were

constructed on desolate, slippery rock formations in the middle of the

sea, rising, mirage-like, straight out of the waves, with lights shining at the their summits.

Seashaken Houses is a lyrical exploration of these magnificent, isolated sentinels, the

ingenuity of those who conceived them, the people who risked their lives building and rebuilding them, those that inhabited their circular

rooms, and the ways in which we value emblems of our history in a

changing world.