See also Eddystone Rock, Falklands Islands and Eddystone, Pennsylvania
The Eddystone, with current lighthouse and stub of previous tower
The
Eddystone, or the
Eddystone Rocks, are a seaswept group of rocks situated some 9 statute miles (14 kilometres) south west of
Rame Head in
Cornwall,
England,
United Kingdom. Formerly a treacherous hazard in the approaches to the
English Channel and the port city of
Plymouth, the rocks have played host to four iterations of the
Eddystone Lighthouse, and are still home to the current
lighthouse and the stub of its immediate predecessor.
[ View at 1:50000 scale.]Although the nearest point on the mainland to the Eddystone is in Cornwall, the rocks fall within the city limits of Plymouth, and hence within the county of
Devon.
[ View at 1:50000 scale.]There have been 4 lighthouses on the Eddystone Rocks. Winstanley (two versions; the second however just replaced the top of the structure), Rudyard, Smeaton and finally the Douglass Lighthouse which is the present one. When the Douglass Lighthouse was completed the people of Plymouth, grateful for the countless lives which had been saved since the introduction of the lighthouses, paid for the dismantling and reassembly of the Smeaton Lighthouse from the red rocks of Eddystone to Plymouth Hoe where it is a popular tourist attraction today.
A traditional sea-shanty "The Eddystone Light" chronicles a fictional encounter between the lighthouse keeper and a mermaid, and has been recorded by
The Seekers,
the Weavers, and
Peter Paul and Mary