The Experimental Lighthouse
Today Trinity Buoy Wharf is dominated by London's only Ligthouse. Its purpose was not the familiar one of maritime navigation but to experiment and develop lighting for the network of lighthouses and lightships maintained by Trinity House.
In fact there were two lighthouses here, as this early view from the Thames shows. The original one was built in 1854 and demolished in the late 1920's. This was the building used by the celebrated Michael Faraday, scientific adviser to Trinity House, to pioneer electric lighting for the South Foreland Lighthouse in Kent.
The surviving lighthouse was built in 1864 to the designs of Sir James Douglass, and the lantern installed by Campbell Johnstone and Company in 1866. Both experimental lighthouses were in constant use to test maritime lighting equipment, for example the red and white flashes for the Wolf Rock Light in 1869. The roof space adjoining the present lighthouse housed Faraday's workshop for examining lenses and other apparatus.
Through the early to mid twentieth century the Experimental Lighthouse was used to train lighthouse keepers. It then reverted to testing lights which, as was Faraday's practice a century before, were observed from Shooters Hill across the river.
The Lighthouse is now home to 'Longplayer', a unique sound installation by Jem Finer and Artangel. It features a twenty minute recording of the sound of Tibetan 'singing bowls'?, continuously repeated, and infinitely varied by a computer programme which ensures that the same sequence of sound will never be heard more than once in a thousand years.
Longplayer is managed by the Longplayer Trust, and is regularly open to the public