The Spark In Our Bonfire Hearts

Lit to warn of Viking invasion, to celebrate a Diamond Jubilee or merely to indicate bathtime, beacons are a time-honoured method of sending a message, says Jeremy Hobson

-  Jeremy Hobson

Long before telephones and texts, beacons played a key role in the networks of local, regional and national communications. Before that, Celtic bonfires sent messages to the gods requesting fruitful crops and the sun’s return after winter. Being nearer to the heavens and, therefore, closer to the deities in whom the worshippers believed, hilltops were frequently the favoured places for positioning any such beacons of hope. High ground was considered to be one of the most sacred parts of the earth—a consideration that continued into Christianity. In the book of Isaiah, ‘a beacon upon the top of a mountain’ is mentioned and Jeremiah tells of ‘a sign of fire’ warning of forthcoming evil.

For navigation more practical than spiritual, beacons situated along the coastline guided sailors and their ships into safe harbour. On Castle Hill at Dover, the Romans built the eight-sided Pharos, which still stands today. Constructed of stone, platforms at the top of its towers held metal braziers, the light from which sent signals to a second similar structure at the Western Heights opposite, as well as corresponding with one some 21 miles away at Cap Gris Nez on the northern French coast.

Beacons of one kind or another aided coastal smugglers in both navigation and communication during the 1700s. In order to indicate a landing spot safe from the attention of the customs and excise men, those waiting on shore often positioned a lantern in the mouth of a convenient cave. Thus placed, it could only be seen from the sea. An alternative was to light a beacon of locally growing furze, which burned briskly, but brightly at night; in the case of planned daylight landings, green, damp vegetation was used to smother the flames and produce plumes of smoke.