Hook Head Light House — Churchtown (shelburne By.)

Located on the level landscape at the S tip of the narrow part (L c. 4.5km NE-SW; Wth c. 600m-1.5km NW-SE) of Hook peninsula. A lighthouse tower was built early in the 13th century by the monks of St. Dubhán’s church (WX054-009001-), who by this time had adopted the Augustinian rule and the name of St. Saviour’s. The identification (Ffrench 1898) with St. Saviour’s church in New Ross (WX029-013074-) is erroneous. References date from 1245 when the monks were commanded to continue providing the light on the tower they had built. The tower might have been built c. 1210-1230 at the instigation of William Marshall the elder, who survived shipwreck off the Wexford coast. This prompted him to found the Cistercian abbey of Tintern (WX045-027001-). Marshall is also thought to have built a circular vaulted keep, similar to the lighthouse, at Pembroke castle in Wales c. 1200 (Colfer 1984-5, 71-2). Twelve acres were set aside for the equal maintenance of the monks and the custodian. After the Suppression of the Knights Templar in 1314 the lighthouse was vested in the Sovereign (mayor) and Corporation of New Ross, who walked the bounds ceremonially to demonstrate possession up to 1687 at least. The lighthouse was maintained without interruption until c. 1641, but it is described as a former lighthouse that used to be white-washed in 1657, in the terrier or commentary of Hook parish in the Down Survey (1656-8). (Hore 1900-11, vol. 4, 398-409; Colfer 1978, 29-32) The tower was restored as a lighthouse in 1671 by Robert Readinge who encased the light, which was provided by coal in a brazier, in glass. According to Robert Leigh writing in 1684 the lamp was operating at that date (Hore 1858-9, 459), but possession was claimed by Henry Loftus of Loftus Hall (WX054-002----) in 1688. Henry succeeded in his claim, and in 1706 he leased it to John Kent for the Revenue Commissioners, but the lease only included the lantern, the stairs and the coal store. The keeper and his assistant, together with their families, may have occupied the first and second floors as separate domestic units from this time, and further space was provided by inserting ceilings below the vaults of these floors. In 1728 Nicholas Loftus threatened not to renew the lease without a large increase in the rent, in which he was successful. A sketch dating to c. 1685 and another by Bartlett in 1780 shows crenelations and a raised platform at the centre of the top of the tower as well as buildings at the base, one of which is thought to have been a chapel (Colfer 2004, 86-7, figs 9, 11). The lamp was converted to one ’12 feet in diameter with 12 lamps’ operated by whale oil in 1791. In 1810 operations were handed over to the Ballast Office when the light was probably enclosed, and further work was conducted in 1864 when the keepers houses were built. Three red stripes were added to the exterior around this time. During these works a large bed of cinders around the tower was discovered, but the red stripes were soon replaced with two black and two white stripes to provide the unique visual identifier of Hook Lighthouse. In 1867 the tower was handed over to the Commissioners of Irish Lights, who still operate it. In 1871 the power was changed to gas, and paraffin was introduced soon afterwards. In 1911 the three lights were provided with a clockwork rotating mechanism that had to be rewound every 25 minutes. Electricity was not installed until 1972, and in 1996 the operation was automated. It still functions as a lighthouse, but the medieval structure and the keepers’ houses have been open to visitors since 2000. See this web-page accessed on 11 March, 2014. http://hookheritage.ie/ A thorough survey of the structure was conducted by B. Murtagh in preparation for its opening as a visitor attraction, and a test excavation (99E0020) in the vacinity revealed a stone wall enclosure around the lighhouse as depicted on 17th-century drawings and a pit with 13th century pottery (Hayden 2000). The lighthouse tower (ext. diam. 12.3m; total H 24.7m) with walls that are 3.7m wide at the ground floor and 2.7m wide on the upper floors is essentially a medieval building based on the circular donjon or cylindrical keep. It was surveyed in 1984 and this description is derived largely from the publication (Colfer 1984-5). The tower has three vaulted floors, each with plank-centring and four rugged ribs, creating groin-vaulting on each floor. The tower has an external base-batter, and the pointed doorway at the ground level in the buttress or annexe at SE is probably an original feature. The entrance passage leads to the foot of a mural stairs at N which winds anti-clockwise around the building 1.5 times in two sections, interrupted at the first floor, to emerge at what was the battlement level over the second floor at SSW. The vaulted ground floor chamber (int. diam. c. 5m; H c. 5m), which is blackened from its use as a coal-store, is entered at NNE from the entrance passage. It has a single embrasure and light at SE, with a fireplace beneath the slit window, and there is an antechamber off the embrasure at S. A vaulted chamber (dims c. 3.5m x. c. 2m) in the vaulting of the ground floor and partly over the entrance passage could be an oubliette or hidden chamber, but if so, the original access is not evident. This chamber is now reached by an outside stairs. The first floor is entered at S from the mural stairs that has moved in from the outer face of the wall by c. 3m in order to avoid the complexities of the three mural antechambers at the first floor in this part of the circumference. This suggests that some of the antechambers may have been garderobes with chutes running through the thickness of the wall. The first floor chamber is D-shaped because of this (int. dims c. 6.5m WNW-ESE; c. 5m NNE-SSW) and has window embrasures at NE and WNW. In addition there is a fireplace in the main chamber at NW. From the first floor chamber a doorway at ESE enters a second mural stairs that rises anti-clockwise to the second floor (int. diam. c. 7m), which is entered at NW. This floor has window embrasures at ESE, SSW and W, with three antechambers between the embrasures. In addition there is a fireplace at NE. The lower mural stairs has two chambers off it between the ground and first floors, one of which was a garderobe which emptied into a stone-lined drain (Wth c. 0.5m; H c. 1m) that was discovered in 1978 leading to the cliff edge. The stairs emerges at S over the second floor at what was the battlement level, which is now protected by railings. The base of the modern cupola (ext. diam. c. 7m), which is part of the functioning lighthouse, is entered through a pointed doorway at S. (Colfer 2004, 84-91) Archaeological testing (99E0020) N of the tower encountered a robbed out N-S wall (Wth c. 0.8m; H 0.4m) c. 30m N of the lighthouse, which is from the rectangular enclosure depicted on a Phillip’s drawing of 1685. Further E, at a point between the keepers houses, a large pit (diam. 3m plus; D 0.4m plus) had been excavated in the bedrock and was filled with a brown clay that contained limestone fragments with mortar adhering, possible Dundry stones, and fragments of slates. Three sherds of Ham Green ware were recovered from it suggesting a late twelfth or thirteenth century date. (Hayden 1999, 2000) The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Wexford' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1996). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload/revision: 28 March, 2014