Fleetwood has three lighthouses and this walk visits two and gets as close to the third as I would dare without a guide. If you want to visit the third in 2023 RNLI restarted their wreck treks, they are in June but you have to book them in March or April, follow them for more details.
Fleetwood is one of the very few towns that had three lighthouses. The Upper Lighthouse (Pharos) the Lower Lighthouse (Beach) and the Wyre Light, all three were first lit in 1840
The Wyre Estuary was important in shipping and fishing and the channel is still narrow with sandbanks on either side, so the lighthouses were to guide ships to the harbour. Now the channel needs dredging to bring big boats back to the town.
The walk starts at the top of Pharos Street with the best clear view of Pharos Lighthouse, which I can only imagine someone at some point was making a joke about, as Pharos is the Greek word for Lighthouse. Take that as you will Pharos Lighthouse stands at 27 metres tall and was designed by Decimus Burton and Capt H.M. Denham. From here we are going to walk straight towards the Pharos Lighthouse till we get to the base.
From the Base of Pharos Lighthouse if we face North West and look straight down Upper Lune Street we can see the Lower Lighthouse. This is how lighthouses worked from out to sea they would line these up and when the two line up together that’s where the channel is from out to sea. We are going to follow this direction to the beach and the Lower Lighthouse. On the way we pass by the North Euston also designed by Decimus Burton.
The Lower Lighthouse also designed by Decimus Burton and Capt H.M. Denham stands on the edge of the beach and a ramp for launching boats out to sea, and was a much-used beach for boats in earlier times, and old postcards show the beach being used by smaller inshore boats. but the Lower Lighthouse and the buildings around it are all good places to stop and draw.
We are going to turn southernly and follow the promenade along past the site of the old Fleetwood Pier where there are only a few tiles left showing where it was. We are going to flower the ramp down to the lower promenade and onto the beach, if the tide is out please don’t venture beyond the marker at the end of the groynes (breakwaters)
As we look out to sea here there isn’t much left of the Wyre Light, as unfortunately it suffered a fire in 1948 but the structure stood tall until 2017 When it sunk into the sands. This was due to shifting sands from the channel not being dredged and an unfortunate nature of the technology used in 1840 when it was constructed as it relied on a firm layer of sand which is no longer present.
The Wyre Light was designed by the Irish Engineer Alexander Mitchell and was the first ever lit screw-pile lighthouse in the world. A feat of engineering it is sad that it can’t be replaced, but if it could please design your idea for the replacement for Fleetwood’s third Lighthouse, which has views across Morecambe Bay.
Unlike the two lighthouses on land which were used to guide the ships safely in the Wyre Light was used to warn of the sand bank and was situated on the far corner of the sand bank
If you were the designer of the new Wyre Light what would you place there? Try designing a new third Lighthouse.