The current Spurn Point Lighthouse was completed in 1895, but its story stretches back more than five centuries.
Spurn Point is a narrow sand and shingle spit at the mouth of the Humber Estuary, extending over three miles into the North Sea. Constantly shifting with tides and storms, it has always been both a hazard to shipping and a place of great strategic importance. Once home to lifeboat crews, lighthouses, and military defences, today Spurn is a designated nature reserve, famous for its rare wildlife and migratory birds.
The Spurn Lightvessel was also stationed off Spurn Point in the Humber estuary until 1975.
The first recorded attempt at a lighthouse at Spurn Point came in 1427, when a hermit named William Redbarrow was permitted to show a light from a tower, though it is uncertain whether it was ever built. Later proposals were resisted until 1674, when Justinian Angell succeeded—after a lengthy legal battle—in erecting a pair of coal-fired lights known as the High and Low Lights. These early towers, including an octagonal High Light about 60 feet tall, were repeatedly damaged by the elements.
By the mid-18th century, Spurn Point had extended further into the sea, leaving Angell’s lights dangerously misleading. In 1776, the celebrated engineer John Smeaton designed new coal-fired lighthouses: a 90-foot High Light and a 50-foot Low Light, closer to the new tip of the spit. Yet time and weather took their toll again. By 1892, cracks appeared in the High Light, and it was replaced by the present tower, a 128-foot high structure designed by Thomas Matthews.
The Low Lights had their own evolution. Smeaton’s tower was replaced in 1816 by a new 50-foot design by John Shaw, and again in 1852. Eventually, the High Lighthouse was modified to display three subsidiary lights from its lower levels, making the Low Light redundant. Its lantern was removed, but the decapitated tower can still be seen along the shoreline.
The High Lighthouse was converted to electricity in 1941 and finally decommissioned on 31 October 1985. After lying derelict for decades, it was restored in 2016. Once surrounded by keeper’s cottages—now reduced to overgrown foundations—the black-and-white tower remains a striking landmark on the ever-shifting spit.
At the end of the Spurn peninsula is the Spurn Point Beacon.
Today, visitors can explore Spurn Point Lighthouse through guided tours arranged by the Spurn Discovery Centre, run by the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust.
The centre houses fascinating exhibits, including the great bull’s-eye lens from the lighthouse itself.
Walking to the lighthouse is possible, but visitors must check tide times carefully to avoid being cut off.
