Lighthouse And Attached Buildings

Lighthouse and attached buildings on Coquet Island

A complex structure combining medieval monastic remains with 19th-century lighthouse installations. The site was originally a Benedictine monastic cell dating to the 14th or 15th century, substantially altered and extended in 1841 when Trinity House converted it into a lighthouse complex.

The medieval parts are built of squared stone of varying quality. The early 19th-century lighthouse-keeper's cottage uses large squared stone, while the 1841 additions employ squared stone with raised tooled-and-margined quoins and dressings. Roofs are flat except for the cottage, which has a slate roof with 20th-century waterproof covering.

The original medieval plan consisted of an east-west two-storey domestic range with an attached chapel to the east and a north-west sacristy turret. A tower stood to the south of the west end of the domestic range, possibly originally detached. In 1841 a new dwelling block was built, incorporating the undercroft of the domestic range and linked to the tower by a lobby. The upper part of the tower was rebuilt to carry the lighthouse lantern.

The south elevation displays the tower on the left with a chamfered plinth. The lower three floors are medieval with traces of old openings and 19th-century windows. The recessed top stage has a corbelled-out embattled parapet and a circular lantern with swept dome and weathervane. To the right, blocked medieval loops are visible on the lower two floors. The lobby features a vertical-panelled door with Gothick sidelights within a segmental-pointed arch, and paired six-pane casements above. Beyond this stands a three-bay domestic range with a boarded door under a four-centred arch, a buttress-like projection for a newel stair, and two enlarged basement loops. The 1841 upper floor does not extend over the full length, and medieval walling survives with a chamfered first-floor window. At the far right is a single-storey five-bay cottage with a central gabled porch containing boarded doors on each return and a hipped roof with a stepped-and-banded ridge stack. The cottage's right return incorporates the east end of the chapel, distinguished by double-chamfered jambs and sill of large windows. At the foot of this wall lies a worn 14th-century cross slab.

The north elevation shows an 1841 three-bay block to the right with a central projection carried up as an octagonal turret and embattled parapets on corbels. To the left, beyond attached yard and outbuildings, the rear wall of the cottage incorporates parts of the north wall of the chapel, including a projecting sacristy turret with its upper floor on an oversailing chamfered course and squinch arches between returns and the main wall behind.

The west elevation displays the 1841 block on the left, with its right part set forward and featuring an oriel window. Beyond this is the lower lobby, with vertical-panelled double doors in a segmental-pointed arch beneath Trinity House arms in a gable. The tower stands at the far right with 19th-century windows. The 1841 parts throughout have raised window surrounds with extended lintels and sills; most glazing has been renewed.

The interior reveals the medieval domestic range beneath, which contains an undercroft with a pointed tunnel vault, now divided into three chambers. Two blocked doors in the west end and a blocked newel stair in the south are visible. The sacristy turret (which appears to be solid at ground-floor level) shows a drawbar tunnel in the door jamb, and drains and a flue built into the wall thickness. The tower has been much altered in the 19th century, though its basement with pointed barrel vault may be medieval.

Historical context: The site was almost certainly home to a Celtic monastery. Saint Cuthbert met Abbess Elfleda of Whitby here in 684. In the medieval period it housed two notable hermits: the Dane Saint Henry of Coquet and Martin, who angered Robert fitz Roger of Warkworth by building his own windmill. The site later became a cell of Tynemouth Priory; the Prior is recorded as owning 'Coket-Island Tower' in 1415. After the Dissolution, it was used by coin counterfeiters and garrisoned as a military outpost, being taken by the Scots in 1643.

Yard walls and single-storey outbuildings to the north of the 1841 block are not of special interest.