Whitby High Light

Whitby High Light is a lighthouse and attached keepers' cottages built between 1857 and 1858, with later extensions in the 20th century. Designed by James Walker for Trinity House, the structure features red brick that is rendered and painted white, with a green-painted chamfered plinth and dressings. The lantern is made of painted corrugated iron and has a painted iron gallery with brass fittings. The cottages have slate roofs.

The landward front showcases a one-stage octagonal tower with a basement and lantern, flanked by linking bays that lead to one-storey, two-window cottage fronts. The tower includes a two-light window set in a deeply splayed opening on the lower stage, and above it is a relief moulding of the Trinity House arms. The gallery, which encircles the tower at lantern level, is adorned with horizontal railings and square-section standards topped with bulb and mushroom finials, supported by shaped corbels. The lantern is topped with a conical cap, finial, and weathervane.

The linking bays feature four-panel doors beneath bracketed flat hoods, while the cottage fronts have four-pane sash windows with painted sills. The roofs of the cottages are pyramidal, with conjoined stacks at the apex.

Inside the tower, the basement, which was formerly an oil room, is fitted with curved staging and furniture. The ground floor, previously a service room, contains fitted furniture and encased clock weights for the occulting mechanism in the lantern. The lantern retains its gallery and stairs, which are supported by foliate brackets and standards. The outer-door handle is designed as a traditional grasping hand. The lighthouse uses a replacement catadioptric lens from 1890, which is still in operation, and the occulting mechanism from the same year serves as a backup system for the current light. The extensions to the cottages and peripheral buildings are not of special interest.