Lighthouse to be opened in bid to illuminate mysteries of Spurn

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust has been awarded more than £68,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund to work up proposals for the Spurn’s Communities Along the Sand project. It aims to restore and open the Grade II listed lighthouse on Spurn Point, initially at weekends and Bank Holidays and conserve and explain to visitors the fascinating history, biodiversity and habitats which make up the Spurn National Nature Reserve.

At the moment the lighthouse is only open once or twice a year but the plan is to see displays mounted on each of its floors in future.

The proposals will cost around £500,000 and restoration of the 117-year-old structure will take a couple of years.

In the meantime a new heritage officer is being appointed who will be running workshops on local, maritime, and military history, bird migration, and climate change later this year and next.

Nature tourism manager Martin Batt said: “We get 70,000 people a year and very few of them are lucky enough to go up in the lighthouse. We believe it will be very popular. Lighthouses are beacons and have a sort of mystery about them.

“At Spurn that’s underlined by the presence of the lifeboat station which is still the only 24-hour fully manned station on the whole coast.

“It’s only when you are on top that you can understand what a strange place it is – that long finger of sand sticking out across the estuary.”

The project’s title comes from the well-regarded book The People along the Sand, written by historian Jan Crowther, which charts the history of the Spurn peninsula and Kilnsea and its people since 1800.

A massive breach in the mid-19th century left the peninsula a collection of small islands. But concern about the threat to shipping lanes in the Humber saw the government of the day introduce a series of chalk banks to protect the land and groins to collect sand.

It has been living on “borrowed time” ever since, with people coming back and digging another road each time it has been breached by the sea. In the past year alone it has been washed over twice.

Mr Batt said: “We do recognise that Spurn is a vulnerable site, but we do feel it has long term sustainability.

“We have been talking to some very exciting designers who are talking about projecting on the inside of the curved walls.

“We haven’t fixed on a design but one of the proposals shows a hole in the wall of the lighthouse looking at the old military community and another one looking at the way Spurn formed in the Ice Age.”

A major structural survey will now be carried out of the lighthouse, which needs work doing on its staircase as well as a new viewing area at the top of the lighthouse, and repainting. A planning application should go in next year.

Fiona Spiers, head of the Heritage Lottery Fund for Yorkshire and the Humber, said: “We are pleased to give our initial support to this project which aims to conserve and interpret the wonderful biodiversity and habitats of the Spurn National Nature Reserve.

“While there is much work to be done, we look forward to receiving a full application from the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust in the future.”