Littlebury
RE –ENACTMENT OF THE
COLLAPSE OF
WINSTANLEY’S
EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE in 1703
EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE in 1703
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RE –ENACTMENT OF THE
COLLAPSE OF
WINSTANLEY’S
EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE in 1703
|
Parish
of Littlebury Millennium Society/History Group
Junior Summer History Days -12th August
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Littlebury
is famous for Henry Winstanley who built his ‘House of
Wonders’ here and
erected the first lighthouse on the Eddystone rocks at Plymouth at the request
of William III. He was tragically killed when this splendid edifice
collapsed,
with him in it, during the great storm of November 26th
1703. As
part of our Junior Summer History Days programme we thought it would be
thrilling to build a large model replica of his lighthouse and despatch
it in a
‘storm’ of our own making. With permission to do
this on Church Meadow, the
site of Winstanley’s ‘House of Wonders’
that had its own brick model lighthouse
built in the garden, we were all set for the project.
In
the preceding weeks we, and Waitrose very kindly, amassed quantities of
cardboard boxes and tubes (enough for four lighthouses as it turned
out) and
during the day we built a 12ft high scale model in sections at the
village
hall. The children and their parents divided into four teams:
‘Base with Goods
Gallery’, ‘Airry’, an area open to the
elements, ‘Kitchen and Bedroom’ and
‘Lanthorn’, for the lamp and 60 candles. We worked
with written instructions,
patterns and a ‘white model’, all of which were
prepared in advance to ensure
that we finished within the day.
Altogether
about twenty children and teenagers between the ages of 3 and 17 got
stuck in,
showing immense concentration as well as parents, grandparents and
other
interested adults, who maintained a steady pace. Even as we worked kind
people
arrived with still more cardboard. After a picnic lunch on the
recreation
ground we completed the four sections by 5.30pm. We offered them up to
each
other to see if they fitted – mercifully they did.
Luckily
the promised rain held off and we lit a barbecue for all the model
makers at a
house near the meadow, the adults imbibing ‘Littlebury
Lighthouse’, a beer
brewed by Saffron Brewery’s Dave Camman, a much missed
manager of our local,
The Queen’s Head. In the evening, as dusk fell with the sort
of atmospheric
skies we would have ordered if it had been possible (a rainbow, deep
blue skies
and a golden light), we carried the sections of the lighthouse into
Church
Meadow while many Littlebury folk turned up to watch.The lighthouse was successfully assembled and we attempted to light the candles, which, due to a sharp breeze, unfortunately kept blowing out; but when a high-powered torch was played on the tin foil covered ‘Lanthorn’ candle compartments instead, the effect was bright and illuminating. The children were by now at a fever pitch of excitement and, with a background of thunderstorm sound effects, careened around the wavering lighthouse with turquoise net waves, waving them up and down, creating ‘stormy’ conditions with wild and generous abandon. At a given signal they surged forward after the final thunderclap crescendos died away and our beautiful lighthouse disappeared promptly into a sea of long wet grass. Within seconds our careful model makers of the daytime turned into tempestuous waves of the evening, rising and falling on the quickly disappearing edifice. It was a long day but certainly an exciting one. Lizzie Sanders |
click on any image for a larger version
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| Marking out the cardboard | Cutting out the shapes |
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| The lanthorn starting to take shape | The roof of the lanthorn |
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| The
cornice that goes just beneath the kitchen complete |
The lanthorn nearly complete |
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| Kitchen
and bedroom complete, the Base with Goods Gallery in the background |
Putting it together outside |
Many
thanks to Chris Woodhouse for the following wonderful
evening images of the 'collapse' in sequence
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