South Foreland Lighthouse
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South Foreland Lighthouse is a Victorian lighthouse on the South Foreland in St. Margaret's Bay, Dover, used to warn ships approaching the nearby Goodwin Sands. A lighthouse had previously stood on the site since at least 1730; for most of this time it was manned by the Knott family of lighthouse keepers.
It was the first lighthouse to use an electric light. It was also used by Guglielmo Marconi during his work on radio waves, receiving the first ship-to-shore message from the East Goodwin lightship, the first ship-to-shore distress message (when a steamship ran into the same lightship, and the lighthouse relayed the message up the coast to the Walmer lifeboat), and the first international transmission (from Wimereux, France, in 1899).
Originally there was another lighthouse further down towards the cliff edge to give a bearing on the leading lights principle when a ship was at the point where it could safely turn left into the Downs behind the sands or right to go safely around the Sands. They were both built in the 1840s. However, the Sands shifted over the following years until this bearing became dangerously inaccurate and so the lower light was taken out of service in 1910.
The lighthouse went out of service in 1988.It is now owned by The National Trust and open to the public.
By road: Off A258, following Upper Road into St Margarets at Cliffe
By rail: The lighthouse is approx 12 kms from Dover Station
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