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Origin and history

The Gatteville Lighthouse, located at the point of Barfleur in the English Channel, was built to secure a dreaded maritime area, marked by many shipwrecks such as the Blanche-Nef. Vauban had already stressed in 1633-1707 the need for a lighthouse at this place, nicknamed "the horror of seafarers" because of the violent currents and the absence of night markers. The Chamber of Commerce of Rouen launched its construction in 1774, entrusted to the entrepreneur Jacques-Martin Maurice. A first tower of 25 metres, lit in 1775, uses a fire of wood and coal, replaced in 1780 by a system of 16 oil lamps.

In 1825, facing the initial tower's insufficiency to accommodate modern lenses, the engineer Charles-Félix Morice de la Rue designed a new lighthouse of 74.85 meters, built between 1829 and 1835. This giant of pink granite, second highest in Europe, is equipped with an optical allowing a range of 27 nautical miles. Electrified in 1893 and automated in 1984, it now houses a double optic and a mercury tank, while the former lighthouse, transformed into a semaphore in 1835, houses a panoramic room for maritime surveillance.

The lighthouse, classified as a Historic Monument in 2009, symbolizes 19th century maritime engineering. Its construction required 11,000 blocks of granite, totalling 7,400 tons, and its operation involved up to six guards with their families, or about 40 people living on site. Open to the public, it attracts 35,000 to 39,000 visitors annually, closing only in January or by violent wind. The site was also used as a setting for the movie Diva in 1980.

Architecturally, the lighthouse combines classicism and innovation: its cylindrical tower, laid on a two-level base, increases from a diameter of 9.25 meters to the base to 6 meters high. A local legend claims that there are as many steps as there are days in the year (349 in reality), windows as weeks, and levels as months. The facades and roofs of the old lighthouse, as well as the new lighthouse and its annexes, have been protected since 2009.

The Gatteville lighthouse also embodies the history of maritime lighting techniques: from coal fire (1775) to oil-fired lights (1780), then electricity (1893), and increasingly efficient optics. Its role in maritime safety remains crucial, with a lantern equipped with a 1600-watt xenon and a 29-mile range. The adjacent semaphore, operated by nine watchmen, continuously monitors traffic to the northeast of Cotentin.

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