Lighthouses of Wales, Skerries Lighthouse, Anglesey...early 90's
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 เม.ย. 2019
- This was shot on video back in the early 90's. It was taken over several visits when we used to go out to give the place some TLC every now and then. The Lighthouse had been automated in 1987. You will notice some big "Bodge" job where the lens had been fitted with "Dumbos" ears!..since the electric light bulbs were getting bigger and more powerful, the lens was giving off the odd extra little flash...so the technicians came up with this...nice!
Fascinating, thank you. When I was a coastal radio operator, last century, we received weather observation messages from the Foveaux Strait lighthouses, Dog Island, Center Island and Puysegur Point, until they were automated in the 1980s.
Thank you very much. I enjoyed doing the weather bits on some of our Lighthouses, It gave us something else to occupy our minds. Cheers.
Another great video Peter. I was on the Skerries as an SAK in early 1975. I did two months out there. Such a fantastic island to spend time on. As regards the question as to why the house is so large. I was told by various keepers, that two families used to live out there, Principal Keeper and Senior Assistant Keeper in the main house. And a single keeper in the cottage. The building that later became the oil store. A listed building as far as I know. When attending school became compulsory for all children, they brought the families back to the mainland and turned the Skerries into a rock status lighthouse. Also, the Skerries was privately owned until 1841. The education act was passed in 1880. I went back to the Skerries in 1981 for a month during the 18 months I spent as a relief Assistant Keeper travelling to different lighthouse before being appointed to the Smalls. I would have loved to have been appointed to the Skerries.
Cheers for all that brilliant info John and also for the kind comments. I never got to serve on either of those lights but we were the husbandry team from holyhead depot for the Skerries, so I got to visit there often, and yes I would have loved to have been appointed to the Skerries too. Take care and stay safe in these crazy times we are going through.
Indeed Sir. Bradshaw's railway handbook - section 11 page 81 - records that the Skerries was sold by a 'Private Person' to the Trinity board in 1835 for £445,000. Such was the philanthropic and patriotic fervour of some great noble local landowner that this huge price (at that time in history) was exacted in order that a lighthouse could ultimately be built there to serve the interests of every passing ship, it's cargo, British trade in general, and the lives of seafarers and passengers alike. Kind regards.
Absolutely love your videos. This one was excellent. Amazing how the original keeper’s cottage is still standing
Thanks. That cottage was used and abused for a while then they got it renovated with a large grant but I haven't been back to see if it is still ok. The filming was before the renovation.
Hello Peter. I am enjoying your work very much. David Gill
Hi David, thank you very much. Glad you like them. Cheers and stay safe.
Excellent video, I love watching your videos.
Thank you, I loved making them, take care.
Peter, that was very entertaining thank you. I used to live in Anglesey when a boy - just south of Mynydd y Garn and could see the flash from the lighthouse (not the actual direct light, just reflected light in the sky). On foggy days and nights we could also hear the foghorn and I can still remember that eerie sound in my mind's ear even now, sixty odd years later!
The terns seemed to give you a hard time for crossing their nesting grounds. I remember some divebombing me whilst playing golf in Llandudno - can't have been on the fairway then Ha-ha.
Thank you, and nice to hear it jogged your memories...as for those Terns one of them got me but didn't draw blood.
i remember living in holyhead and thought the fog horn was some sort of horror music playing, to this day i can still hear it in my head, and i live in leeds
Excellent historical documentation. Thank you!
Thank you Jason, appreciated. Stay safe.
Not quite as confined as life in a tower! Please keep these films a-coming - they're great. Cheers Peter
Thanks, yes Island life you could stretch your legs and yes more to come.
Thank you for sharing the video! Wonderful place! Awesome Radio Room! How I wish owned that DME(Radio Beacon) set up!
Hi, I don't know what they did with all the redundant gear they took out during automation work it would probably make us cry if we found out....yes it was an awesome set up, take care.
Great footage........lovely scenery
Wales is AWSOME
Thank you and I'm English and quite agree with you, Wales is awsome, take care.
I have a fascination with Lighthouses, I don’t know why. Strange that the light house keeper had a small cottage out side when there was such a huge building for him to stay in. I have a feeling you didn’t show all of it to us, massive from external view.
Hi just found this sorry, The big massive building which was the Keepers quarters before they automated has been sealed off from us and used just for the bird wardens so I could no longer go in there to film it. So you only missed out on the internals of those quarters.cheers
Nice video of thr good old time👍
Glad you liked it Peter, thanks, stay safe👍
Can hear the listers banging away in the background... nice video.. thanks for sharing..
Glad you like it, thanks.
Nice one mate 👍👍🤠🇬🇧
Cheers mate, glad you liked it.
another great record, thanks Peter
Thanks for the comments, cheers.
Peter, I'm so pleased to see this video. It will probably be the closest I will ever get to the Skerries Lighthouse where my Great Great Grandfather was a keeper. One of the children of this family was born here on the Skerries in 1866.
Wow, pleased to hear from you, that's some wonderful history you have there, can you tell us any more..names etc would be great, do you live in this country at all? thanks again and take care.
@@PeterHalil Hello Peter, I did make one small mistake, it was my Great Grandfather, not a Great Great Grandfather. He was Henry Rogers Nutsford. The proof that he was on the Skerries in 1866 came about from the baptism of their son, Thomas John Nutsford who was born in that year. He was baptised in Dublin, Ireland and it stated on his baptism that he had been born on Skerries Island, Holyhead. I have often wondered why they didn't take him into Holyhead to be baptised. Do you think it is possible that they could have gone direct from Skerries to Dublin? Trinity House lost many of the records for their lightkeepers, apparently in a fire? so it is only the baptism record that gave me the information. I live in the Hawke's Bay of New Zealand.
@@gillianallison8649 OK, I've been doing an online search as I don't think that they would sail to Dublin from the Skerries. Holyhead is the port for going to Dublin and if I've found the right person online then it states that his wife was born in Dublin so that maybe why the baptism there? I found an old list of Keepers which if you scroll down to the "N's" is this your Great Grandfather?
www.genuki.org.uk/big/Lighthouses/Keepers
Great video 👍
Thank you very much. Stay safe
I watched Hanois too, much more space here to stretch the legs although the Terns quite overwhelming. I met you years ago, remember you in Cemaes. I did a short video 'Skerries to Skerries, islands of Wales and Ireland' a few years ago, sailed from the lagoon to the Irish Skerries.
Thats weird my name is Skerry but spelt different. My grandfather was irish
Hi, and I'm still in Cemaes, sorry for my late response but for some reason unknown several messages have snuck through without giving me any notification so I'm spending my day today going through all the videos to see what I've missed. Your trip sounds great, take care.
@@PeterHalil Some drama over the weekend there, take a look at the Daily Post today, a yacht high and dry on the rock in the north entrance by the looks of it.
@@mjcooke2sailingmostly cheers I just seen the pics on line.
that lens is fantastic
Some of those lenses were huge.
Great footage, interesting at around the 4:25 mark when you zoomed in on the entrance there is diaphone foghorn sounding in the background. The only one I know of and still active today is at Pen Anglas near Fishguard but, that seems a little far away from this part of Wales to reach. It’s a shame that these historical maritime buildings are now being downsized.
Thanks for that, No idea about the noise heard. Yes it's a great shame that in the minds of people that should no better, that they interpret progress as demolition in some cases.
at 1:52 upper left hand corner, looks like a face in the rocks screaming "Look Out!"
Seems like a good place for a ferret, or an air rifle. ;o)
Must be nice to have an island to yourself.
Yes it was rather nice, added bonus of no cold callers.
The lens at Longstone has 'wings', or at least it did 15 years ago- I'll find out next month if it still has after becoming LED. When I was up Holyhead mountain one evening, I could see a false flash from Bardsey.
Cheers, I think when they made these lenses they were never meant for powerful electric light bulbs hence the "Wings" to try and stop those weird false flashes.
Hydro Turbines are interesting as are Bell Siphons.
How many people lived here? Why is the support house so massive? It's almost five times the usual size. Every lighthouse I've seen has a single bedroom house with a bathroom and radio room and nothing more.
What kind of camcorder was used? This is amazing quality for the early 1990s.
Hi, only 3 keepers lived in there. No idea why it was so massive unless in the past they had families there with them as some Lighthouses did. My camcorder was a Sony Hi 8 one but I couldn't always afford the hi 8 tapes. I had the tapes put onto dvd's from which went onto my laptop with no loss of quality then I edit with Power director 16 which also doesn't cut any quality off of them.
I always daydream bout living on a lighthouse. As a child im Withensea i used paid 3d to clime to the top of the big lighthouse which i was told was the most inland lighthouse on the mainland - if correct Cheers Rob
Thank you for your input much appreciated, never stop dreaming, cheers. Stat safe and Happy Christmas.
Thank you again, there must have been so much more to see. How often did you need to clean the lenses? It looked like a days work to clean in itself. Loved the Rabbits! But why were the birds attacking you?
When Keepers were still there the lens was given a once over most days but a proper clean once a week or more.The birds are Terns and they nest on the ground and seem to have taken over the place. They attacked because they had young and protect any perceived threat vigorously. Cheers.
know it well , live on Anglesey close by
I live on Anglesey too.
23:18 - Then I have a question, how in the world do rabbits make it onto the island? As far as I know, they can't swim in the notoriously choppy waters of the Channel. Or maybe they're a secret society that can build micro-subs and live in tiny neighborhoods under the waves... :D Rabbits, rabbits: they're bloody everywhere! (Something an Australian co-worker grumbled loudly about when my father had to tour a factory in the outback in the early 1980s)
@@largol33t1 The rabbits were probably introduced as a food source way back. Then were reintroduced from another Island when the RSPB tried playing God and killed them all off once with Myxomatosis in a failed experiment to get lots of bird life onto the Skerries.
Very interesting Sir, thankyou. Could you please explain why the mercury bath would need changing. Do you mean the receptacle within which the fluid is retained, or the fluid metal itself? (I do already understand the principle of the dense fluid displacement medium). Kind regards.
It is the mercury itself that occasionally got topped up due to evaporation over time I guess. Not something that was frequently done, in fact in 23 years I only saw it happen once, cheers.
@@PeterHalil Thank you Sir, makes sense, and good to know. Even carrying a stone jar containing just one pint of mercury up to the lens gallery would be arduous work. Kind regards.
At 27:15, there’s a little viewing lens attached to the main lens framework - what’s its purpose?
If I remember rightly that is on most lenses in some form or other and basically that lined up with the centre of your light source, the bulb, to make sure it had been positioned properly. If my memory is lacking, I hope other Keepers that may see this, will correct me.
Hi Peter, I've got a question for you: Were lighthouses like this one provided with an electrical line from shore or they were only running on diesel-generators? I understood from your videos- which are an amazing heritage for the future generations anyway - that the 'rocks' they were mainly powered by onboard diesel generators, but I was wondering about the bigger ones, like the one in this video.
I'm very curious. Thank you in advance.
Hi, thank you for your kind words. As far as I'm aware, all the offshore Island rocks were run on engines. South Stack and Strumble Head, were attached by small bridges to the mainland, so these were on a mains cable with engine backups. So the Skerries was engines. Cheers and stay safe.
Peter, thank you for your kind reply.
👍😁👏👏👏
Thanks mate, take care.
Hi Peter, I’ve noticed that in quite a few of your videos the lighthouse lens remains in motion even when the light is off. Any particular reason for this as opposed to it being stopped? Thanks.
Yes, all the big rotating lenses have big thick circular magnifying lenses in them, which give the lighthouse its beams of light. They work in reverse if stopped by magnifying the suns rays back inside which can melt cables or even start fires.
@@PeterHalil That makes a lot of sense. I knew there must have been a good reason - thank you!
I swear I have a toaster that is bigger than the tv in the main relaxing room.
🤣 Hasn't technology gone forward in leaps and bounds,take care.
Why on earth would you change the mercury does it wear out,,,, brilliant by the way
Thanks for your comments. Don't think it is a complete change, just rarely they would top it up, because of evaporation over time.
Oh I see thanks Peter
Well I never knew that mercury would evaporate Peter that’s amazing I didn’t believe it until I googled it thank you very much
Every effort was made to keep the lantern area spotless but over time dust and other debris reached the surface of the mercury, the bath was not completely closed off.
During the cleaning procedure the mercury would be filtered through chamois leathers into enamel buckets the bath cleaned and the mercury returned and topped up if any losses had occurred.
PHAROS23 Mad as a hater or as mad as a light house keeper.