Eddystone Rocks

"See also Eddystone Rock, Falklands Islands and Eddystone, Pennsylvania"

The Eddystone, or the Eddystone Rocks, are a seaswept group of rocks situated some 9 statute miles (14 kilometres) south west of Rame Head in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. Formerly a treacherous hazard in the approaches to the English Channel and the port city of Plymouth, the rocks have played host to four generations of the Eddystone Lighthouse, and are still home to the current lighthouse and the stub of its predecessor.cite web | title = Get A Map | url = http://getamap.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/getamap/frames.htm?mapAction=gaz&gazName=g&gazString=SX3830333632 | publisher = Ordnance Survey | accessmonthday = September 6 | accessyear = 2006 View at 1:50000 scale.] cite web | title = Eddystone Lighthouse | url = http://www.trinityhouse.co.uk/interactive/gallery/eddystone.html | publisher = Trinity House | accessmonthday = September 6 | accessyear = 2006]

Although the nearest point on the mainland to the Eddystone is in Cornwall, the rocks fall within the city limits of Plymouth, and hence within the county of Devon.cite web | title = Get A Map | url = http://getamap.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/getamap/frames.htm?mapAction=gaz&gazName=g&gazString=SX3830333632 | publisher = Ordnance Survey | accessmonthday = September 6 | accessyear = 2006 View at 1:50000 scale.]

There have been 5 lighthouses on the Eddystone Rocks. Winstanley I, Winstanley II, Rudyard, Smeaton and finally the Douglass Lighthouse which is the present one. When the Douglass Lighthouse was completed the people of Plymouth, grateful for the countless lives which had been saved since the introduction of the lighthouses, paid for the dismantling and reassembly of the Smeaton Lighthouse from the red rocks of Eddystone to Plymouth Hoe where it is a popular tourist attraction today.

A traditional sea-shanty "The Eddystone Light" chronicles a fictional encounter between the lighthouse keeper and a mermaid, and has been recorded by The Seekers, the Weavers, and Peter Paul and Mary

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