Whiteford Lighthouse, Gower Peninsula, South Wales Postcard

Whiteford Point Lighthouse is located off the coast at Whiteford Point near Whiteford Sands, on the Gower Peninsula, south Wales. It is an unusual cast-iron lighthouse built in 1865 to a design by John Bowen (1825–1873) of Llanelli, by the Llanelli Harbour and Burry Navigation Commissioners to mark the shoals of Whiteford Point, replacing an earlier piled structure of 1854, of which nothing remains. It is the only wave-swept cast-iron tower of this size in Britain. A pitched stone apron surrounds the base of the lighthouse. After a failure of the solar unit, the light was removed and not replaced. However, the lighthouse still has navigational value in daylight. Whiteford Lighthouse is listed by Cadw as Grade II* as a rare survival of a wave-swept cast-iron lighthouse in British coastal waters, and an important work of cast-iron architecture and nineteenth-century lighthouse design and construction. It is also a Scheduled Ancient Monument.