South Head – The Macquarie Lighthouse

South Head And The Macquarie Lighthouse 

Stand on Old South Head Road at Vaucluse and you are on Australia’s longest continuously used navigational-beacon site. A flagstaff and fire/beacon signalled shipping from the early 1790s; Australia’s first purpose-built lighthouse followed when Governor Lachlan Macquarie laid the foundation stone in 1816. Convict architect Francis Greenway designed the Palladian-inspired tower, lit in 1818. Macquarie famously rewarded Greenway with a conditional pardon after calling the work “noble and magnificent.”

Local sandstone proved soft; within decades the tower needed iron banding, and by the 1870s the lantern room could not take modern optics. Colonial Architect James Barnet designed a replacement that deliberately echoed Greenway’s form. The new electric light (among the earliest electrically powered lighthouses) commenced in 1883 a few metres from the old tower; the Greenway lighthouse was demolished in 1887. Hornby Light, the separate Lower Light at the tip of South Head (1858), had already been added after wrecks including the Dunbar (1857) showed the need for a clearer harbour-entrance mark.

The present Barnet tower, keepers’ quarters and archaeological remains of the Greenway lightstation are managed by the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, with the working light under AMSA arrangements. Photographs here show the Macquarie Lighthouse and South Head setting.

Governor Macquarie Laid The Foundation Stone Of The Tower In July 1816, & Had Expected The Job To Be Finished  In Nine Months. 

Francis Greenway Didn’t Like Using The Samdstonw Quarried On Site As It Was Too Soft, And He Knew It Wouldn’t Last. 

Within 50 Years The Tower Had To Be Reinforced With Iron. By 1883 The Whole Elegant Structure Had Been Condemned. 

I. December 1817 Governor Macquarie Made Up A Breakfast Party To Drive Out And Inspect The Work. He was So Delighted With The “Noble & Magnificent Ediface” - That He Gave Francis Greenway His Conditional Pardon. 

When The Lamps In The Original Lighthouse Were First Lit They “Astonished A Mariner When He Beheld Them From 38 Miles Out At Sea. 

The Second Light, Can, Officially Be Seen 25 Miles Off shore.