La Corbière lighthouse
Interesting facts
- The name La Corbière means 'the place where crows gather', from the local word for crow, although gulls have long since taken over the rocks.
- In Jèrriais, the Jersey Norman language, 'We've passed La Corbière' is a way of saying the worst is over.
- Another Jèrriais saying, 'A lot of water has passed round La Corbière', means much the same as 'water under the bridge'.
- The lighthouse appears on Jersey's five-pound note and on its twenty-pence coin.
- The light was first shown on 24 April 1874.
- The catamaran Saint-Malo hit a rock called La Frouquie in 1995, and a sculpture by Derek Tristram on the headland commemorates the rescue.
- The concrete tower on the headland above was built by German forces in 1941 and painted to pass for an 18th-century granite round tower.
- The mail packet Express was wrecked on the rocks off La Corbière on 20 September 1859.
- From 1885 to 1935 La Corbière was the western terminus of the Jersey Railway, whose old trackbed is now a footpath and cycle route.
- Nearby stands La Table des Marthes, a megalith once used as a place to witness contracts.
Why it is worth it
At the southwestern tip of Jersey, where the island ends in a jumble of granite reefs, a white tower stands on a rock that is an island twice a day. La Corbière lighthouse was completed in 1874 to the designs of the engineer Sir John Coode, and it holds a quiet place in engineering history as the first lighthouse in the British Isles to be built of concrete. The tower itself is only about 19 metres tall, but set on its rock the lantern sits some 36 metres above high spring tides, throwing a white light up to 18 nautical miles and a red light up to 16.
The setting is the point. At low water a concrete causeway runs out from the headland across rock pools and patches of sand, and the lighthouse can be reached on foot; as the tide turns, the sea closes over the path again and the tower is left standing alone among the breakers. The approach is famous among photographers, above all at sunset, when the light goes down behind the tower and the wet causeway catches it.
The tides here are strong and fast, and the lighthouse carries the memory of what they can do. On 28 May 1946 the assistant keeper, Peter Edwin Larbalestier, drowned while trying to rescue a visitor cut off by the rising water, and an alarm now sounds to warn walkers to return while there is time. The reefs have claimed ships as well: in April 1995 the French catamaran Saint-Malo struck rocks just north of the lighthouse, and all 307 people on board were rescued. The light has been automatic since 1976.
Getting there
La Corbière is in the parish of St Brelade, about 11 km west of St Helier. Jersey Airport (JER) is only about 5 km away. Bus route 12A runs from Liberation Station in St Helier to Corbière, and there is a large car park on the headland above the causeway. The causeway is passable only for a few hours around low water; check tide times before walking out.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
La Corbière is an area within the parish of St. Brélade, on the extreme south-western point of Jersey, Channel Islands.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
49.17983, -2.25010per Wikidata