Britain's only independently run lighthouse, a red-and-white striped Norfolk tower saved by local people when it was due to be switched off
Happisburgh Lighthouse is the striking red-and-white banded tower that rises above the fields just inland of this stretch of the Norfolk coast. It went up in 1790, one of a pair of lights built to guide ships past the Haisborough Sands, the treacherous sandbanks offshore that have claimed a great many wrecks. The other tower was later pulled down, leaving this one as the oldest working lighthouse in East Anglia.
What makes it unusual is who runs it. In the late 1980s Trinity House, which looks after most of the country’s lighthouses, decided this one was surplus and planned to switch it off. Local people were having none of it, formed a trust to take it over, and it has been run by that volunteer trust ever since, the only independently operated lighthouse in Britain. The distinctive red bands, three of them on a white tower, are its own marking.
The lighthouse is still a working navigation light, so it is not open all the time, but the trust opens it to visitors and lets people climb the tower on a number of open days through the year, worth checking ahead for. It stands a short walk from the village of Happisburgh and its big flint church, St Mary, and the coast path runs close by. One thing to know: this is one of the fastest-eroding coastlines in the country, and the cliffs by the village are steadily falling into the sea, so heed any signs and keep back from the edge.
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