Pictures of one (maybe two) lost Belfast lighthouses

 

Detail of a painting View of Sydenham, Belmont and Glenmachan 1864 by Nicholas Joseph Crowley

Due to a restriction on numbers allowed at Black Head lighthouse, the recent ALK visit was split into morning and afternoon sessions, which gave me the morning free in Belfast. What to do? Shopping, maybe? Then I remembered I was Super Lighthouse Nerd and I spent a couple of hours at the Public Record Office in the Titanic Quarter researching old documents, after which I decided to go down to the old Belfast Harbour Office across the river. Places like that, I thought, often have old paintings on the wall and maybe some of Belfast's old lights - the Seal Channel light, or Garmoyle, maybe - could be represented.

Belfast Harbour Office on Corporation Square

The great thing about the Harbour Office is that it has one of those revolving doors at the entrance but its made of wood, not metal or plastic. Well, I found it great, anyway. The lady at reception informed me that the building was full of old paintings but only the foyer and a small room off it were open to the public. Slightly disappointed I ambled off, turned a corner and there on the wall was a painting about the size of my living room at home, entitled View of Sydenham, Belmont and Glenmachan 1864 by Nicholas Joseph Crowley.

I have written about the history of the East Twin light before - particularly here - so a quick resume bullet points is all that is required.

• In the first half of the nineteenth century, Belfast harbour was a swamp with an old channel winding through it.
• The Harbour Board commenced dredging to straighten up the channel. The dredged stuff formed East Twin Island, which was basically a line. An early map shows a lighthouse at either end (I'm guessing one light for going up the channel, one for going down)
• The west side of this line was then joined up to the city and the line was widened. This became a public park, renamed Queens Island. 
• The shipbuilders gradually took over the park.

Map taken from Griffiths Valuation (OS 1st ed) showing East Twin when it was but a line, with a Light Ho. at either end

The above map transposed onto a modern map, showing the rough position of the original strip of land.

There will be questions on all this later, so I hope you have been paying attention. Okay, so back to the Crowley picture. The aspect is basically from the county Down side of the Lagan to the county Antrim side.

As you can see, there is the East Twin Island in its infancy, before it was cruelly de-islanded. There is definitely a lighthouse there on the right hand side (eastwards) I think it is a hexagonal structure, though it may be octagonal and it looks like it is made of wood. A Ballast Board report of 1864 of harbour lights, lists a green light at the north east end of East Twin Island (the hexagonal structure) and another green light at the southern end. I attach a few photographs of the same picture from different aspects: -

So, absolutely delighted to get a look at the original East Twin Island lighthouse. To be honest, it seemed to be on the same style as the later photographs taken with the Titanic in 1912, which is nice to see.

But then, of course, the eye was drawn to the left hand end of the island, the city end, where there should have been another lighthouse - 

It says that a green light showed from this spot and, when you think about it, it would make sense to have a keeper living on the linear island. He could tend the light in his own house and then amble the three cables down to the other end of the island to light the other one. It looks a very solid structure and certainly large enough, possibly too large for a keeper's house alone. This is the spot from where a causeway was initially built to join up with the city. 

Its not often that my hunches turn out right but I'm pretty confident that I've bagged two lost lighthouses for the price of one!!

Incidentally, the Ballast Board report of 1864 was somewhat scathing of the rates of pay for keepers at Belfast: -

I would bet all my vinyl Ramones albums that the Belfast Harbour Commissioners' response was to nod their heads sagely and then forget about it.