Geograph - photograph every grid square

Now owned by the National Trust the lighthouse was opened in 1871 and was the first to use alternating current which gave much better reliability than direct current. The dark window on the left was an innovation designed to provide a fixed two colour light across Sunderland Bay. Ships would steer along the white sector before turning into the port of Sunderland; if the light turned red they had drifted too close to the rocks.