Having operated without incident on the headland near the village of Mortehoe, Devon, for 93 years, the first Bull Point Lighthouse’s serenity was disturbed when on 18 September 1972, the Principal Keeper reported ground movement in the area of the engine room and the passage leading to the lighthouse, and that two inch fissures were opening up.
In the early hours of Sunday 24 September 15 metres of the cliff face crashed into the sea and a further 15 metres subsided steeply causing deep fissures to open up inside the boundary wall; walls cracked and the engine/fog signal station partly collapsed, leaving it in a dangerous condition and putting the fog signal out of action.
Construction work on a replacement lighthouse began in 1974; the lighthouse was designed and built so that all the equipment from the old lighthouse was utilised after some necessary modifications. The fog signal was discontinued in 1988.
Bull Point Lighthouse was automated in 1975 and is now monitored and controlled from Trinity House’s Planning Centre in Harwich, Essex.