Shine a light across the sea...

Whitley Bay, North Tyneside.
Reached via a tidal causeway, St. Mary's Lighthouse, built in 1898, remained operational until 1984 when it was superseded by modern navigational techniques.
The lighthouse and keepers' cottages were built in 1898 by the John Miller company of Tynemouth, using 645 blocks of stone and 750,000 bricks. Built on the site of an 11th century monastic chapel, whose monks maintained a lantern on the tower to warn passing ships of the danger of the rocks, the lamp was powered by paraffin, and was not electrified until 1977, making St Mary's the last Trinity House lighthouse to still be lit by oil.
The lighthouse was decommissioned in 1984, just two years after its conversion to automatic operation. At the time, its first-order fresnel lens was removed by Trinity House and put on display in their museum in Penzance, but following closure of the Penzance lighthouse museum the original lens was returned to St Mary's in 2011 to be put on display.
Since 2012 St Mary's lighthouse has been grade II listed and is now run by North Tyneside Council, complete with small museum, a visitor's centre and a cafe.
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