Magazine And Privies About 15 Metres North East Of Fog Signal Battery

LUNDY

SS14SW BATTERY POINT 1938-0/2/11 Magazine and Privies about 15 metres North East of Fog Signal Battery

GV II

Magazine and attached privies serving fog signal battery. Circa 1861 for Trinity House. Dressed granite. Gabled roof, the privies now roofless, the magazine has barrel vaulted brick roof clad in slate. Overall rectangular plan. 2 attached privies on right (east) with wider (approx. square) integral magazine on left (west).

Exterior: 1 storey. 2 symmetrical gables at front (south) facing path down to Battery (qv). Under the right hand gable 2 privy doors, under the left hand gable a doorway to the magazine, all with granite lintels. The building is set on a bettered stone plinth on the cliff edge, its back facing the sea.

Interior: The W.C.s have been removed from the privies. The magazine is brick-lined, has a brick barrel-vaulted roof and a ventilation hole in the rear gable.

Note: The Old Lighthouse (qv) is situated at 470 feet above sea level and was often obscured by fog. In an attempt to solve the problem a fog signal battery (qv) was built in circa 1861 on cliffs below. The installation included cottages for the gunners (Battery Cottages qv) and this magazine and privies. In 1878 Trinity House substituted guncotton rockets for the guns and in 1881 it was even considered that the lower light of the Old Lighthouse should be moved to the Battery. Bells, hooters and whistles were also experimented with but The Old Lighthouse and Battery were eventually abandoned in 1897 when the North and South Lundy Lighthouses (qv) were built. (Lighthouses, their Architecture, History and Archaeology:D.B. Hague and R. Christie; LUNDY:A and M. Langham).

Listing NGR: SS1277244892