and myself will go.'
_Richard II_, Act II, Scene 1.

The atrophied corner of Yorkshire that embraces the lowest reaches of
the Humber is terminated by a mere raised causeway leading to the wider
patch of ground dominated by Spurn Head lighthouse. This long ridge of
sand and shingle is all that remains of a very considerable and
populous area possessing towns and villages as recently as the middle
of the fourteenth century.

Far back in the Middle Ages the Humber was a busy waterway for
shipping, where merchant vessels were constantly coming and going,
bearing away the wool of Holderness and bringing in foreign goods,
which the Humber towns were eager to buy. This traffic soon
demonstrated the need of some light on the point of land where the
estuary joined the sea, and in 1428 Henry VI granted a toll on all
vessels entering the Humber in aid of the first lighthouse put up about
that time by a benevolent hermit.

No doubt the site of this early structure has long ago been submerged.
The same fate came upon the two lights erected on Kilnsea Common by
Justinian Angell, a London merchant, who received a patent from Charles
II to 'continue, renew, and maintain' two lights at Spurn Point.

In 1766 the famous John Smeaton was called upon to put up two
lighthouses, one 90 feet and the other 50 feet high. There was no hurry
in completing the work, for the foundations of the high light were not
completed until six years later. The sea repeatedly destroyed the low
light, owing to the waves reaching it at high tide. Poulson mentions
the loss of three structures between 1776 and 1816. The fourth was
taken down after a brief life of fourteen years, the sea having laid
the foundations bare. As late as the beginning of last century the
illumination was produced by 'a naked coal fire, unprotected from the
wind,' and its power was consequently most uncertain.

Smeaton's high tower is now only represented by its foundations and the
circular wall surrounding them, which acts as a convenient shelter from
wind and sand for the low houses of the men who are stationed there for
the lifeboat and other purposes.

The present lighthouse is 30 feet higher than Smeaton's, and is fitted
with the modern system of dioptric refractors, giving a light of
519,000 candle-power, which is greater than any other on the east coast
of England. The need for a second structure has been obviated by
placing the low lights half-way down the existing