Sir,—I thank Mr. Annesley for his interesting letter upon former usages of the clock tower at St. Albans, to which ancient city—so I have read—early London was a mere appanage—a wharf.
However, I consider Hadley Church tower with its still existing beacon has equal claim with St. Albans clock tower to be a land lighthouse. The Hadley beacon is of the familiar “plumber’s devil” pattern. I assume the St. Albans beacon, too, was a wrought-iron wood-burning contrivance; if so, what is the qualifying distinction? I claim for Hadley beacon later usage. When I was a youngster a fire in it which could be picked up from points of ’vantage in seven counties was a Bonfire Night hardy annual. Upon the last occasion the bottom fell out, and caused trouble.
Place-names with the prefix, such as Beaconsfield, Beacontree, etc., prove that these aids to travellers have been
fairly common. I call back a dormant recollection from memory’s lumber-room. Years ago, whilst on sail somewhere
in the New Forest, a memorial tower lighthouse was pointed out to me. My informant told me the Trinity Brethren forbade
its use, as, although well inland, it might be a danger to Channel navigation. Can anyone locate this erection?
H. J. STRATTON.
Bowes Park, N.
Sir,—A beacon is a land lighthouse, and in prehistoric times the use and purpose of the beacon was not that of a warning light, but as a guiding light for directing travellers along the straight tracks. An indication of this is that the Anglo-Saxon words “beacon” and “beckon” are practically the same, and that the latter is a signal meaning “Come to me.”
All references in the Bible to the beacon are as a guiding light. Although through the Middle Ages the signal became a warning one, it was not its original purpose, and Newman, in his “Lead, kindly Light” is the true poet of the beacon shining “o’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent stilltill the night is gone,” and not Macaulay, of a later time, when “twelve fair counties saw the blaze on Malvern’s lovelylonely height.”
This is why there survive instances and records of church towers being used as beacons, for they were on the track. Many
places were named from being on the track of the beacon light, such as, about London, Beckenham, Beacontree,
Beaconsfield, Bexhill. Brent is Old English for burnt, and the plain square tower perched on the rocky height of Brent
Tor, in North-West Dartmoor, was a beacon tower, as was probably St. Lawrence, the old church at Brentford. About a
dozen churches whose towers have been used as beacons are named in Johnson’s
“By-ways of British Archaeology,”
ALFRED WATKINS.
Hereford.