List of Daymarks for Lightships 1900-1930
Replacing red flags in 1832, daymarks or topmarks as they were often called, were placed at the top of the mainmast of the earlier lightships to enable their identification from a distance when their hulls lay below the horizon. Painted black, they were made of wooden hoops in the form of a cage, 6 feet in diameter at the widest part. Their height above sea level varied from about 65 to 75 feet. They were discontinued in the early 1930s as more ships came into service with fixed lanterns instead of a mainmast.
Station | Daymark | Light |
Barrow Deep | Cylinder | W |
Calshot | Ball | W |
Calshot Spit | Ball | W |
Cockle | Ball | W |
Cork | Ball | W |
Corton | Upper half of ball under ball | R |
Cromer Knoll | Triangle | Alt W+R |
Cross Sand | Two cones points together | W |
Dudgeon | Ball | Alt W+R |
East Goodwin | Inverted triangle over diamond | W |
Edinburgh | Half ball, base upwards (lower half of ball) | W |
Galloper | Two cones, points upwards on main; ball on mizzen mast | R |
Girdler | Ball | W |
Gull | Ball | W |
Haisbro’ | Ball | W |
Inner Dowsing | Small ball over large ball | G |
Kentish Knock | Small ball over large ball | W |
Leman & Ower | Two masts with ball at head of each (until 1912) | Alt R+W |
Long Sand | Diamond | W |
Lynn Well | Two cones with points together | W |
Mouse | Ball | G |
Nab | Ball | W |
Newarp | Three masts with ball at each; 55’ Fore; 75’ Main; 44’ Miz. | W |
Nore | Ball | W |
North Goodwin | Three masts with ball on each | W |
Outer Dowsing | Upper half ball over ball | W |
Outer Gabbard | Inverted cone | W |
Owers | Ball | Alt W+R |
Princes Channel | Ball | R |
Roaring Middle | Ball | W |
Royal Sovereign | Small ball over large ball | W |
Seven Stones | Ball | W |
Shambles | Ball | W |
Shipwash | Ball | W |
Smiths Knoll | Ball | Alt R+W |
South Goodwin | Ball | W |
Spurn | Ball | W |
St. Nicholas | Ball | G |
Sunk | Half ball, flat side down over a ball | Alt W+R |
Swarte Bank | Lantern at masthead (from 1912) | W |
Swin Middle | Lantern at masthead | W |
Tongue | Lantern at masthead, later ball | Alt R+W |
Varne | Ball | R |
Warner | Ball | W |
Would | Diamond | W |
Details from Admiralty list of lights and time signals; Part I for British Islands – 1913