Lighthouse in Kingston

• One of Georgetown 's heritage sites.

Built in 1830, the lighthouse towers 103 feet in the air and remains one of the last structures built with brick in the 19th century.

According to history, this lighthouse is the second built in this country. The first one was made of wood and built by the Dutch on the very spot in 1817.

This present structure was built by the British and put into operation on June 1, 1830. It has been in service ever since.

The lighthouse is the first landmark sighted by ships coming into the Demerara Harbour . The building is manned round the clock and receives a variety of messages from ships off the coast of Guyana , especially those requesting to be piloted into the source of the Demerara River .

These messages are passed on to the Harbour Master's Office, at the Transport and Harbours Department, Georgetown Stelling.

The lighthouse is topped by the housing of the lamp tower in which a revolving light is surrounded by a narrow area surrounded by glass windows.

The lamp is huge and egg-shaped with tiers of glass held together with brass rivets. It was constructed by the Chance Brothers in 1862, and is operated by a complex mechanism of plied wire rope weights.

It has to be wound like clockwork after being turned on at 18:30 hrs. It revolves on its hinges once each minute, broadcasting a 1,000-watt beam out to approximately 30 miles at sea and around the north of Georgetown .

The lamp works continuously for three and one half hours then stops, forcing the attendant to climb into the tower to carefully rewind the mechanism. The beam then resumes its once-a-minute rotation showing ships miles at sea where land begins.

The lighthouse holds a storehouse of 146 years of history. It is held that before the 1830s, slaves were hanged in the vicinity of the lighthouse for refusing to remain as docile tools in slavery, or for committing certain offences.