Green Cape Lighthouse

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The Green Cape Lighthouse

The first Macquarie Lighthouse was built near Sydney in 1818. It was to be another 40 years before a second lighthouse was built on the NSW coast.

In 1863, a Select Committee of the NSW Legislative Council received evidence from several experienced master mariners, including a Captain Francis Hixson, about light stations that might be required on the NSW coast. The Committee decided no new lights were needed south of Sydney.

However, in 1872 Hixson was appointed President of the Marine Board of New South Wales and announced he would ‘light the coast like a street with lamps’. This would involve installing lights at 25 nautical mile intervals along the entire NSW coastline.

The following year it was resolved ‘that having in view the extent of the traffic on this coast, and that Green Cape forms a considerable projection on the line of coast after rounding Cape Howe, a first-order revolving light should be erected on Green Cape’. Vessels travelling north towards Sydney often sailed very close to the coast at this point, to avoid the strong south-moving East Australian Current, so the need for a light was clear.

Nothing tangible then happened until 1879 when a decision was made to build a light at Green Cape and £17,000 was included in that year’s (Consolidation Fund) Appropriation Bill.

Plans were then prepared for a stone lighthouse and for houses for lightkeepers and their families by the NSW Colonial Architect James Barnet.

Tenders were sought in May 1880. Not a single tender was received - possibly because it was apparent that the local sedimentary stone was too soft to support the proposed tower.

Fresh tenders were sought in July to build a tower using concrete.

There remained, however, the major challenge of transporting the necessary materials and equipment to the Green Cape site. There was no easy access by sea and the nearest safe anchorage was almost seven kilometres to the north, at Bittangabee Bay, which itself was only navigable by shallow draught craft. So a contract was eventually let in December 1880 to Albert Wood Aspinall, an experienced stone mason and builder, for the construction of a ‘substantial’ wooden jetty and store house on the southern shore of Bittangabee Bay and for the building of a 4 mile (6.4km) long hardwood rail tramline on which horse drawn wooden trolleys would be jinked to the Green Cape worksite.

Aspinall also received the contract to build the lighthouse and the lightkeepers’ cottages.

All supplies, building materials (other than those found locally), construction equipment and men, were brought from Sydney by steamer to the port of Eden and were transshipped on a small ketch owned by the contractor on an almost daily basis to the newly built jetty. Considerable delays to deliveries occurred as a result of low tides and adverse weather conditions.

And the site at Green Cape was bleak, windswept, and life for the workforce would have been arduous – long hours, supplies delayed by rough seas, gales, inclement weather and a constant shortage of labour.

But there was another, more major, problem. It had been thought that bedrock, suitable for foundations, would be encountered no more than 9 feet down. But this was not the case, and Aspinall’s men had to dig some 20 feet through a bed of ‘pure white clay’ to reach bedrock – that then necessitated Barnet’s office having to redesign the tower’s foundations.

Aspinall proved to be an innovative builder, for example designing a special iron bucket that allowed the lifting and pouring of one cubic yard of concrete in just five minutes.

Meanwhile, work commenced on the lighthouse keepers’ residences and other associated buildings. These were to be constructed of brick, as well as rubble and concrete. So aggregate was blasted and quarried from the rock platform at the bottom of the steep cliff below the site and then hauled up a tramway, which had a 40 degree incline, using a 1 ton capacity bucket and three horses. It was then mixed with Portland cement shipped out from England in barrels, lime, and local sand to make the concrete mix. The lime was sourced by burning middens on the banks of the Pambula River or at Bittangabee Bay, which had previously been an important Aboriginal camping site and teaching ground.

180,000 sandstock bricks that were used to build the houses, stables, telegraph station, flag locker and other outbuildings and underground rain-water tanks were made at Boydtown on Twofold Bay, and then shipped to Bittangabee Bay.

Drifting sand repeatedly caused problems by covering the tramlines and building foundations with layers of sand several feet deep.

As the work was nearing completion, Aspinall ran out of money (the final cost of the project was £19,338.8.9 compared to the original budget of £17,000). So his creditors took over the contract, retaining Aspinall as the project supervisor. It is believed that, tragically, Albert Aspinall later put some dynamite in his mouth and lit the fuse.

The lantern house, light source and working mechanisms were purchased from Chance Bros and Co. Limited, Lighthouse Engineers and Constructors of Birmingham in England.

The Green Cape lightstation was handed over to the government on 29 October 1883 and its light was first displayed on 1 November 1883. At the time it was the largest mass concrete structure in New South Wales.

Three lighthouse keepers were employed and supplied with ‘commodious and comfortable’ quarters to ensure that the light never failed. Overnight they worked 5 hour shifts to achieve this and to wind the mechanism that rotated the prisms that transmitted the warning light seawards from the light tower.

Communication with the site was initially established through the daily trips (weather permitting) of the contractor’s ketch from Eden to Bittangabee Bay. However, in May 1882, a telegraph relay station was opened at Green Cape that provided the first direct telegraphic communication between Green Cape and Sydney. This was established so that Sydney could be informed of the arrival of vessels in Australian waters, and it provided a vital communication link between Gabo Island and Eden.

Passing vessels would also come inshore and signal with maritime flags whenever they wished to send a message.

Subsequently, changes were made on several occasions to the frequency of the revolution of the light from the Green Cape Lighthouse, the intensity of the light was increased, and the various steps were taken to make light more reliable. In 1962 the old manually-lit lights were replaced by electric lights that were powered by on-site diesel generators. From about 1975 the lighthouse was automated and the lighthouse keepers were made redundant.

The introduction of satellite navigation since has effectively made it unnecessary for the lighthouse to be retained.

In 1997 the ownership of lighthouse and adjacent buildings was transferred from the Commonwealth to the State Government and the site was incorporated into the Ben Boyd National Park (since renamed Beowa National Park).

Today the historic lighthouse and surrounding buildings can be easily accessed from the Princes Highway via Edrom Road and Green Cape Lighthouse Road, and the lighthouse keepers’ cottages are available for holiday rental from the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service. A 30 km ‘Light to Light’ Walking Track follows the coast from Green Cape Lighthouse to historic Ben Boyd’s Tower on the southern shore of Twofold Bay.

Sources: ‘Nomination of Green Cape Lightstation for Recognition as a National Engineering Heritage Landmark’ by Doug Boleyn, Engineering Heritage Committee, Sydney Division Engineers Australia, 2009; Green Cape Lighthouse 54 by Eden Access Centre (both available on-line); ‘Beacons in the Dark’ by Trevor King.