CARDIFF SEE THE LIGHT
A small band of brothers and ladies continued Cardiff Circle’s recent nautical theme by visiting Nash Point lighthouse between Cardiff and Bridgend. The lighthouse, designed by James Walker, the Engineer-in-Chief to Trinity House, has for over 175 years been keeping mariners safe of Nash Sands, the sandbanks off the point at the entrance to the Bristol Channel. The light house is one of two that were constructed at the same time and aligning the two lights as a ship entered the Channel was how the ships avoided the sandbank. As the sandbank moved its position over the years due to the tides the alignment no longer worked and one lighthouse was abandoned. Nash Point was the last manned lighthouse in Wales – the lighthouse keepers leaving on 5 August 1998. In 1977 a rare plant, the tuberous thistle (Cirsium Tuberosum), was found growing around the lighthouse.
The visitors were given a conducted tour of the lighthouse, climbing right up to the light at the top and afterwards were shown around the fog-horn building where President Ceri Davies started up the diesel engine to pressurise the air-tanks and deafened the rest of the party by sounding the fog-horn which can be heard 6 miles away.
The party at the top of the lighthouse
cardiff catenians 