During November, the month of Independence, we will be bringing readers a piece of Barbados every day. We will highlight some of this country’s history, artefacts, as well as the food, sights and scenes that all say Barbados.
Today we focus onRagged Point Lighthouse.
Ragged Point Lighthouse, at East Point, St Philip, erected in 1875, is the third oldest of Barbados’ four lighthouses. South Point, the oldest, was constructed in 1852 entirely of iron. It is one of the last of its kind in existence.
Needham’s was built in 1855 and Harrison’s in 1925.
Until the 1960s brought automatic electric lighting, they were lit by oil lamps, with prisms producing the beam. The rotation was controlled by a weighted clock-work system manually wound every few hours.
The number of seconds between flashes identified each lighthouse.
Source – De Mortar-Pestle: A Collection Of Barbadian Proverbs.
