Leasowe Lighthouse

By mere chance I stumbled across Leasowe Lighthouse while searching on Trip Advisor for restaurants within walking distance of Leasowe Castle ― spoiler alert:  There aren’t any…  The lighthouse is also briefly visible in the distance on Tinks’ flight over Leasowe Castle, from minutes 1:26 to 1:32.  Listed as Europe’s oldest brick-built lighthouse, I immediately knew that I had to unleash Tinker Bell on it…

Built in 1763, the lighthouse was in use until 1908 ― unlike the Lower Leasowe Light, that was also built in 1763 closer to the shore, but destroyed by the sea soon afterwards.  Historic records while ambiguous would suggest that the initial reflector installed was a parabolic mirror, which would make it the first reflector of that kind to ever have been installed in a lighthouse.

When it was closed in 1908, records indicate that the lighthouse keeper at the time was a Mrs Williams, which makes it the only lighthouse at the time known to have been occupied by a female keeper.  After becoming a tea room of all things for a while, it was vacant for an unknown length of time before becoming the base for the ranger service of the North Wirral Coastal Park in 1989.   It contains an exhibition for the ranger service, and is occasionally open to the public, though my understanding is that nothing of the original fittings as a lighthouse has survived.

Postprocessing was the same as with Tinks’ flight over Leasowe Castle.

As a side note, Tinks was not alone on this flight.  Only seconds after I launched her, a couple launched a DJI Phantom from the nearby parking lot.  For a moment I was contemplating to abandon the flight, especially since I was not sure that the other pilot had seen Tinks.  However, the other pilot did not seem to want to film anything in particular, and was flying over the meadows and the beach, so I decided that the risk of continuing with the flight was probably low as I was concentrating on the lighthouse.   The other drone is briefly visible in the video around 2:00, overflying the parking lot.

After I completed my flight I walked over and watched the girl land her drone while her boyfriend / fiance / husband had to hold down their dog to prevent it from going ‘fetch’ on it.  We had a quick chat afterwards.  Her Phantom was purchased second hand, and it would appear that she was flying it merely for the sensation of flying it, rather than for any specific purpose, and was not keeping any records of her flights…

Drone flying is certainly becoming more popular, and a while back two drones being launched independently of each other in the same place by mere chance would have been a really rare occurrence…