Origins of Aids to Navigation
It is very difficult for us, as we enter the twenty-first century, to appreciate the difficulties faced by seamen in the days before planned navigational aids. By day, it was much more beneficial to remain in sight of the land because, with experience or good information, it was possible to identify features of the land. The trained eye could also spot the swirling waters associated with hidden rocks. The vast majority of travel by sea was entirely local, sailors knew their own waters intimately and generally knew how to avoid most dangers. By night, sailors were better off in the open ocean where the stars could provide direction and they were far from the dangers of dark, rugged coastlines and submerged reefs. 'Swinging the lead', the process by which sailors checked the depth of water with a lead weight and a length of rope, was the only safe method of checking for submerged dangers and was usually employed only when danger was expected. The major civilisations such as the Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians and Vikings, which relied upon the sea to expand either their trade or their empires, travelled great distances in waters about which they knew little and soon realised the benefits of navigational aids - seamarks by day and lights by night

Seamarks
Seamarks have always been more important than lights, partly because in the early days reliable lights did not exist. Traditionally seamarks were church steeples, clumps of trees, windmills or other obvious features which could easily be distinguished from sea. Today, lighthouses painted in distinctive colours fulfil the function perfectly, but if other special marks are required they are now generally artificial ones known as daymarks. The term 'seamarks' has traditionally be taken as buoys, beacons and lights. 'Beacon' had conventionally come to denote aids for day use, consisting of masts, pillars or other erections of brick, stone or timber. Nevertheless, the word beacon in bygone times really meant a luminous mark by night far more than a mark by day. Currently, a seamark is defined as 'an artificial or natural object of easily recognisable shape or colour or both, situated in such a position that it may be identified on a chart or related to a known navigational instruction'. This was a good definition throughout seafaring history although charts were not generally used until about 400 years ago

Ecclesiastical lights
From medieval times to the beginning of the 17th century, the safety of seamen, which included showing lights, was a task which often fell to the caring people of the church. Indeed, the majority of early maritime lights were of ecclesiastical origin. One of the first recorded lights, established by a religious order in the British Isles, was at Hook Head in County Wexford, reputed to be the site where the monks of St. Dubhan established a fire beacon as early as the 5th century. Another report gives 810 as the date of establishment, but there is no doubt that the tower that exists there today is the oldest operational light in any of the four countries and dates from 1245. It was reportedly built by the warden and chaplains of the monastery of St. Saviour Rendeuan. A lighthouse is said to have been built at Youghal in 1190 by Maurice Fitzgerald who put it in the care of the nuns of St. Ann's convent, which he endowed. In England, the earliest known light apart from the pharos was a harbour light at Winchelsea on the Kent coast, erected about 1261. Thus, whilst monks may have tended to lights, not all were built by them. St. Catherine's oratory on the Isle of Wight was erected by a rich merchant to fight ex-communication by the Papal church. The merchant, Walter de Godeton, purchased numerous barrels of wine from the local wrecking community at St. Catherine's. Despite the principle of 'Custom and Descent', where salvage from shipwrecks was considered the lawful right of the people, the Pope considered that, because the wine had been destined for the Catholic Church, the salvage was an act of plunder and sacrilegious. In penance to the Church, Walter de Godeton was forced to build St. Catherine's Oratory to provide a 'chaunting priest' and to establish 'a light for the benefit of mariners, to be lit every night for ever'. From 1314 until the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in 1534, the family of Walter de Godeton kept the oratory lit. One of the most famous medieval lights was exhibited from the top of the church on St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall. This light was established around the middle of the 14th century, with the church standing proudly on its island base off the fishing port of Marazion. Ecclesiastical lights were shown in Scotland too, the best known at Leith near Edinburgh from 1522, whilst the last known light erected by a religious order in Scotland was at Aberdeen in 1566

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