The Turret Light

This weather vane is relatively new and immediately below can be just seen the red navigation light. This is the final position of a light which originated in the window of a nearby fisherman's cottage. At sometime during the 18th-19th century a fisherman's wife placed a candle in her window to guide her husband safely home.

Later, a curate paid the woman £5 for the idea and installed a light in the church tower but local authority disapproved so the curate removed it and at his own expense, had a small lighthouse built to the north of the church and a few yards nearer the shoreline, the building is still occupied today and can be recognised by the castellation around the circular roof.

Later the idea was sold to the Trinity House Pilotage and the light reinstalled to the above position and together with lights from the Lower Wooden Lighthouse, the Upper Lighthouse alongside Berrow Road, and the whitewashing of the seaward sides of the Towers of Burnham & Berrow Churches, better navigation was attained for shipping using the ports along the rivers Brue & Parrett, although the whitening of the towers were an early 18th century notion and did not continue into the 19th century.

By the act of Trinity House taking over navigational responsibility, the church became mistakenly referred to as "Trinity Church" despite the dedication being to St Andrew after that of Well's Cathedral. The original smaller lighthouse was used by the curate as his residence and became known as The Church Cottage, the Upper Lighthouse is now also used as a private residence but the Wooden Lighthouse and Turret Light still continue as navigational aids.

 

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