Episode 25 - Blackwall Lighthouse

0:00 Hi everyone, I'm Emily. And I'm Vince. And this is the Lighthouse Lowdown. ["The Lighthouse Lowdown Theme"] ["The Lighthouse Lowdown Theme"] ["The Lighthouse Lowdown Theme"] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. The name of my lighthouse today is so close to the name of another lighthouse that has like four different names. Okay, I'm curious about the other one that has four names and the one you're talking about. I know. And are you skipping a buoy? No, I haven't. It's just the first thing I thought of when I looked at my notes. Because originally I wrote it like the other lighthouse and then I was like, wait a minute, that's not right. It's not toor-leet-us. Toor-leet-us. Toor-leet-us.

0:41 I hope anyone knows what we're talking about. Yeah, well, if they care about us at all, they would have listened to our last. If you listened to the last episode. But anyway, the other lighthouse is on my list. My list is like 15 lighthouses long now. So it's getting a little out of control. You're longer than mine. I've got like three or four. That's what she said. All right, and continuing. We have a, not that anyone cares, but just for trivia. We have a pre-flight checklist that I came up with to help us make sure we've got everything ready before we hit record and start talking to you all. Because last time we didn't record our screen for YouTube.

1:22 And so it was just like a disaster. Yeah, it makes it more difficult. But number one thing on the pre-flight checklist is coffee. So just so you all know, it's very critical to our. We're staying on brand. To our brand, that's right. You don't want to hear us without coffee. I only just started sipping, so it's kind of what it is. So what's the buoy for today? All right, history buoy is riprap. Because we haven't officially covered that. And that's the name of our studio. We didn't? No. So maybe we should talk about it so that. We talked about it in our, gosh, our trivia episode.

2:04 It was one of the questions. Okay, with Dylan? Yeah. So I've mentioned what the definition is, but haven't gone into detail. So it's riprap. There's no space in between if you're American. If you're British, then there is a space in between. Wow. If you're British, which is relevant to our episode today, it can also be called shot rock, rock armor, or rubble. Rock armor is awesome. I like all of those words. Yeah, I think rock armor is the coolest. Shot rock. Spelled with a U because we're British. So how do you spell riprap in English, in American English? R-I-P, R-A-P.

2:45 Okay, so it's not rap with a W-R-A-P. No. It's rap as in Tupac and Biggie. Exactly. All right. So riprap is just human placed rock or other material that's used to protect shorelines, bridges, streams, or other infrastructure against water erosion. So obviously that comes into play a lot with lighthouses because they're often on the coast, sometimes in the water, and riprap is super important when they're actually in the water. Common materials for this are granite, concrete, well, granite and usually concrete, and they either do it like modular pieces that they make to be riprap or they just turn waste concrete from construction into rubble and then use that.

3:34 Nice. I have pictures of all of these, so go to our YouTube so you can see what I'm talking about. I don't have it up yet, but I will. Yeah, no, that's cool. That's interesting. I looked up riprap a while ago. I don't recall why I looked it up, but I found in my search, I had to look up lighthouse riprap to figure it out because riprap is also used for construction and landscaping term for the same heavy rock to help fight erosion. Yeah, so here's an example of riprap on the edge of a body of water to help against erosion. This one's just rubble, so it's just leftover concrete from some construction site or something that they shipped over.

4:15 And this is like drainage systems use it so that the constant stream of water from drainage doesn't eat away at the soil and mess up. That looks brand new. It's very clean riprap. Very fancy. Really, really nice riprap. This one is the modular riprap I was talking about. Very cool. They have a bunch of different types. This is the one that I thought looked more like a video game when things mess up. You can become digitized. Yeah, so I thought that was cool. There's lots of them you can look up online. This is in Japan, I believe. Oh, wow, see this looks German.

4:55 It's very orderly and neat. If you look at the top of the rock over there, it's very Japanese. Also, I think the only German coast is the North Coast, and I don't think it looks a lot like that. Oh, okay. Is it beachy? I've actually, so I've never been up there, step one, but I think there are lots of rivers and like not swamp land, but transition land. I don't think there's like a hard coast. I think it's a transition. I see, kind of like a archipelago type of thing? I think so. Okay. I have to look closer. Oh my gosh, I'm sorry, I'm still looking at this photo, and I just noticed for scale, the boat in the bottom. Yeah. It's like a patrol boat. I was thinking much, much smaller.

5:38 Yeah, these modular, these pieces are enormous. And that's part of the thing is riprap is actually expensive. Like even if you buy waste rubble from a construction site, it's still, you have to transport tons and tons, like thousands of tons of rock just to make riprap. So the transportation itself is very expensive. But I'm pretty sure I saw online that on average, riprap costs like $60 per square yard when everything's said and done. So total. $60 per square yard. That's expensive. Wow. I know. I'm pretty sure one of these things is a square yard.

6:18 Maybe. I say cubic yard because I'm thinking of like concrete. Like when we were engineering. I just had to think about it and I think you're right. Well, it depends if you're surface or volume. Either way, sorry to interrupt so much. Coffee's coming after me. Lighthouses in the water often have riprap to protect them from waves and also as an armor against like grinding ice sheets. So if we talk about like standard rock, it could really benefit from some riprap. It couldn't because it's just perched on a reef. So you wouldn't be able to pile anything up against it because there's nothing to pile on. But that's kind of the idea is that if riprap was there, the ice sheets would not be hitting the lighthouse.

7:00 They'd be hitting the riprap and it kind of dispersed that energy. So here's a. I know that lighthouse. I had another picture and now I don't have it. That's Chicago. But an example of having riprap against, actually this is the one, against waves and ice is Round Island Lighthouse and this is them adding riprap into 2020. And it was like, there was a lot of suspense. People were very concerned that they were gonna lose the lighthouse this year. This is in Michigan so obviously lots of ice happening. And winter was approaching and they were trying to fundraise to buy the riprap to put it around the lighthouse. And so there was like this big moment where the riprap pulled away from the harbor and everyone was like, oh, it's like this collective sigh of relief that it was finally happening.

7:51 Kind of fun. It's awesome. Should cover this one. A crane on a barge. That's no doubt took another crane to load the riprap on. Definitely. Probably from a truck. That's pretty wild. Yeah. A lot of handling for a lot of weight. So that's a good example. That's Round Island Lighthouse if anyone wants to take a look. Sometimes riprap can be used as a bridge, like as a way to get to the lighthouse and also as a blockage of water, especially for like the passage of ships. And so that's kind of what happened with Chicago Harbor Lighthouse is they blocked off part of the harbor from being passed by ships using riprap so that you would have to pass through the opening of the harbor instead of going around, you know?

8:33 Yeah. And you see there's a ladder onto the riprap so it's kind of like used as a access point. Oh wow. So the Chicago, I assume there's a lot of answers to a lot of questions but this particular case, do you know, is that for emergency use, the riprap byway, I guess I'll call it the riprap bridge because it's quite long and precarious. Yeah, it's not that it's like emergency use. I think they, I'm actually almost certain that they would use a boat to get out there mainly because like you can take boat tours that go right up next to this lighthouse so it's obviously accessible by boat more than walking across this.

9:14 And you as a civilian or a normal human, you can't walk on here because it's private property or whatever, you know, government property. But obviously you could pull like a boat up next to it and climb on like they obviously have thought about using it as a way to get on because they have this little access point. That might be another ladder I see, can't tell on the front side. Yeah, that's where boats I think get on. That's awesome. So we saw this lighthouse from Navy Pier. So this photo is a great photo, looks like a drone photo I'm guessing. But for those who don't know, this is not far off of the end of Navy Pier. It's visible. No, you can definitely see it. Yeah, we took some pictures with it in the background.

9:55 Yeah, we were gonna take a tour to go right up next to it to see it. We did do so bad, but timing just didn't work out. I could have made it happen by myself, but it didn't. Someday, we'll make it happen. Yeah, I already have a pin for this lighthouse. So I counted that I've been there. As far as lighthouses go, this is not one of the harder ones to get to. No. No, I don't know about setting foot on it, but I'm really getting close on the boat. I did read online that some people have walked across the rope rap all the way to the lighthouse. I'm like, you guys are crazy. I would do it. I would too. I'm more than illegal. Yeah. I'd get caught. I'm not very sneaky. Back to rope rap. Lastly, it can be used as support for bases of lighthouse on caissons to assist in keeping it upright.

10:39 And I talked about caissons, I think in either my first or second episode, a lot of the stuff that I covered in those history of lighthouses episodes, I think needs to be revisited because I'm a lot better at research now. And I think I could contribute a little bit more to the subject. But yeah, if you wanna hear about caissons, you can look it up or listen to our episode. Or I might do another, I may do a history buoyant on caissons. You could. How's it spelled for those who Google? C-A-I-S-S-O-N. Okay, yeah, I definitely would have got that wrong. But example of this is Plum Beach Lighthouse, which I didn't get a picture up, but you should look it up online. Plum Beach, it's a popular one as well. Cool, thank you. And that's RIP RAP.

11:20 So now we know what our studio is all about. It is Rebel. The RIP RAP studio. The Rebel, and named RIP RAP because it's a thrown together pile of stuff that otherwise would be worth very little. But now serves an excellent purpose. That's right. That is the stuff. What a great metaphor. All right, we'll get into the lighthouse. I mentioned we're British today. So we're, we're. Hi. We've got Joey entering the chat. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not gonna be British today. I don't wanna offend all of the internet at once. No, I'm not. We're just being transported there.

12:01 That's kind of the idea. That's the actual look that we're going for. Great. So we're actually heading over to London. And oh my gosh, I forgot to look this up. It's the Thames River. Thames? Thames? Thames. Are we sure? I would look it up as far as. That's what it is. It says. Thames. Wow. That. Thames. That would have been my absolute last guess. Anyway, the River Thames is the only water that comes into London.

12:42 So it's relatively landlocked besides this river, which is a famous river. Like it's a, it's a big one. Okay. It's snakes 215 miles from the North Sea, almost to the River Severn. I'm guessing on that one as well. But that's, I think that's the biggest or the longest river in the UK completely. Okay. And then the River Thames is the Thames is the second. Wow. Okay. So the River Thames is known for being very easy water to navigate. Obviously it's a river. So like lighthouses are very uncommon along rivers that like go through cities. You wouldn't really need to worry about it. So naturally lighthouses were never really needed along it except for one, which just slipped through the cracks.

13:26 And this is the Blackwall Lighthouse, which is also known as the Trinity Bowie Wharf light. Whoa. Which you can guess it's on Trinity Bowie Wharf. It was built in 1864. It's brown brick, mostly shaped like a warehouse with like round windows and is right up next to the river. And it's the only lighthouse in London. That is wild. London's a very large city, so. So here we go. Nice. Yeah. It's a very large area and that's because originally it wasn't, it was never really a functioning lighthouse. So we can go into it. Blackwall Point, which is what this is named after, Blackwall, is the northernmost tip of Greenwich Peninsula, which is kind of the entrance to central London.

14:10 It's like the river snakes around and one of the big loops is the Greenwich Peninsula. Legend has it that further upstream pirates were publicly hanged at Execution Dock and then their bodies would be hung in cages at Blackwall Point for people to gawk at when they entered central London. Wow. Yeah, so it's got like a little bit of dark history. Has nothing to do with anything, but. That was a long time ago. Yeah, that was a long time ago. I take it. Yeah, that was before the building of the lighthouse. Okay, okay. Just giving the land some dark energy. Blackwall.

14:51 Originally, Trinity Bowie Wharf, which is in the Blackwall Point area, was originally made for storing buoys and also had a bunch of workshops for testing, repairing, and making marine equipment. So it's always been a very nautical area. And the lighthouse itself, I saw different sources that there was already a lighthouse there and it was rebuilt in 1864 and then also some sources that said that it was just built in 1864. But I did see a lot of things that said that it was rebuilt and it was originally Michael Faraday's workshop. Have you heard of him? No. Okay, he's the one who came up with the terms ions, electrons.

15:33 Oh, Faraday. Yeah, I have heard that name. It's been a while, sadly. He came up with the two rules of electrolysis and stuff. Okay. You could tell me whatever. I'd be like, yeah. Physics II was not my strong suit, so let's just leave it at that. But anyway, Faraday was a British physicist and chemist and he discovered benzene as well, worked in alloys and optical glasses and invented the world's first electrical generator. So he's got a lot of stuff happening. Man was busy. Man was busy. And like I said, he coined the terms ion, electrode, et cetera. And he experimented in his workshop, which was right next door to the lighthouse and inside the lighthouse.

16:14 Awesome. And he used the lighthouse exclusively for testing the feasibility of using electric lighting for lighthouses because using lamps and stuff. He was that guy. It was just a pain in the butt. And this was in like 1850s. Crazy. Electricity did not come into lighthouses until far later than that. So, well, okay, worldwide. Popularized. Yes. I was like, I'm about to prove myself wrong immediately. It was obviously a spicy, exciting idea. Yes, yeah, very new. And he was employed by Trinity House, I think it was what it was called, which was the British lighthouse board. So he was actually being paid.

16:56 I think he worked for them for over 20 years or maybe 20 years. I think we've heard of them before in the Bahamas. They developed a lot of the lighthouses there. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Pretty sure. When they were good. I'm glad you know what I'm talking about. The first lighthouse to actually use the electric lighting that he proposed was South Forland Upper Light in 1857. So it started pretty early. I don't know how long they kept it there or if they were just seeing, you know, like let's test this and see what we need to change about it and we'll take it back out and all this stuff. But I didn't look deep into what that is. If we covered this lighthouse, they have a ton of history on it. And there's also another lighthouse, maybe even two lighthouses.

17:36 It's like a trio of lighthouses. So anyway, it's another cool one. It's also on my list. After seeing it on here. Faraday's only invention to ever be patented was designed in this very place and is a new type of chimney designed to stop lamp gases from combusting. So it was like he developed the new type of lamp that went in the lighthouses so that you wouldn't have soot build up and covering your light. Like someone would have to come by and clean it every 10 seconds. Yeah. So a chimney for a fuel lit lamp. Yeah, it's like the chimney, the glass chimney part of the lamp. So it keep it clean without maintenance. Wow, that's pretty cool.

18:17 Yeah, I know. I can't believe that's his only patent. I was gonna say, isn't that insane? And it's fun that it was invented here. He must have just hated paperwork. It's like, if you guys care about it, you can do it. But I don't care about it. He was in it for the knowledge, not for the, I don't know, the recognition. He's a philanthropist. He's already famous. Anyway, back to lighthouse. I just thought it was cool that such a huge name was here. Yeah, yeah. So after World War II, a black wall lighthouse was used as a site to train keepers in. So it taught them literally everything. Like how to take care of the lighthouse in all aspects, how to cook, how to take care of themselves on a lighthouse that doesn't have a lot of amenities.

19:02 So it's basically like being a keeper 101 was taught here. The lighthouse and the workshop were closed in 1988. And so I couldn't find any information about whether or not this actually used to have a beacon up top. It doesn't now. Oh, weird. Yeah, I don't know if it was just that they tested lights and like equipment and stuff up there, or if it actually had a light. I don't think it did. So the size of the, I'm gonna call it warehouse, the shop is enormous in comparison to this lighthouse. And we know lighthouses only need to be tall enough to be seen on a riverfront.

19:42 Of course, that wouldn't have to be very high at all. But I almost wonder if it's because of the scale of it, the warehouse is really the main intent, research facility, manufacturing, testing, and then the lighthouse is like an exhibit for testing, if that was true. So they were storing equipment and all of that. And then maybe the lantern room was just where they tested stuff that they were making in the workshop. That's probably the case. I really wanted there to be a beacon at some point, but there's probably lots of beacons that went through this lighthouse just for very short periods. Is that a curtain up there, or is that a solid, the black area in the light room? No, I think it's just the back.

20:22 You can see in the lantern room, there's some white bits that start to creep out around the side. That is solid all the way through the back. So it's not. Oh, weird. Yeah. It's not open all the way around. Which would be true for a lighthouse that's so close. Facing one direction. Yeah, that's so close to the cities. They would block it off where it's not needed. So you're not flashing the city all of a sudden. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. 1988, the area was bought by London Docklands Development Corporation. And that's when everything was closed. So it was no longer used for storing buoys and testing equipment and everything. And they leased it to Urban Space Holdings in 1998.

21:02 So it's about 10 years went by. Urban Space Holdings wanted to develop it as a cultural and like an arts center, which is what they're still doing today. And it's like known as the strangest area of London. So they wanted to, in the 2000-ish year, they wanted to make it a cultural arts center because that area of town is artsy. They made it artsy. So like today it's known. Oh, they started with the lighthouse. Exactly. It's like, it's known as just the weirdest, like most bizarre area you can go to in London. So they built, they started Urban Space Holdings. They started with building Container City, which is basically office spaces made from shipping containers.

21:46 And they paint them really brightly. I guess I could pull a picture of that. There's one right there in the shot. Yeah, I could not find a lot of pictures of this lighthouse. I love that shot. Really, I mean, Google gave me half a page of results and then was like, here, is this what you're looking for? And it's the other lighthouse. That's so weird. I'm like, no. So yeah, there's not a lot of pictures of this lighthouse, but it's still. I think it's a container painted decoratively there, the green. Yeah, you're probably right. Here, yeah, let me pull a picture. It's pretty crazy, but it was a hit. So they're working on Container City too. Oh, 2.0, they're all office spaces?

22:26 Yeah, it's like an office building made out of. That's pretty cool, actually. Container City. People have done houses and cabins and lots of stuff out of containers. Like Alaska bars that we were talking about. Yeah, the Sluice Box. That's right, yeah. Just trying to think of it. Those containers are also called Connex boxes, which comes from the United States military. I think it was World War II. We basically invented a way to ship our stuff or popularized it maybe. This is cool. Yeah. Sorry. So yeah, this is Container City. But yeah, it was very popular. I really love the windows. And you can tell one of them is cracked open and it does revolutions.

23:09 That's cool, very European. Yeah, I like it, but it's definitely one of the weirdest things. What's this? Is it like a cat ladder going on at the bottom? Here? Yeah. Oh. You know, looking at this back porch with all their hummingbird stuff, I would say they would have a cat access point. Or raccoons. This place is cool. Yeah, so they built this. There's also a couple other strange things there. It has a 1940s American diner called Fat Boys, which is like beloved by the area. They love it. And it was actually like brought over from New Jersey. It was like originally in New Jersey. And they took the diner and moved it to London.

23:52 That's awesome. It's cool too. It's like mostly chrome, has some red, you know, a classic. And there's also a small shed called Faraday Effect. I don't know anything about it. It was just listed as one of the cool things. It may have been like a, like, oh, this is what Faraday's like office used to look like or something. It's just like this little decrepit building. So maybe it's the actual office. I don't know. It's not part of this business, this office space? No, it's just one of the cool things you can find near the lighthouse, like in this area that's owned by the Urban Space Holdings. I guess we could pull up the, I think I had another picture. Yeah. It was pretty.

24:34 Very fast, did you catch it? Oh, so close. I don't understand it. Okay. You have to make the sound. Just had to go fast. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, there's a Pepsi sign in the back. Oh, Fat Boys. Fat Boys. There she is. So maybe it is right up next to it, or maybe they're just advertising. I don't know. It looks like it's part of the building, part of the warehouse space. Fat Boys. I wanna go to Fat Boys in London. It looked good. It looked just really good. I mean, that's very American to go to an American diner in London when you're traveling, but I would do it. I know, why would we go to an American diner when we could just go anywhere? Listen, I go to McDonald's every time I travel.

25:16 Yeah. I've been to McDonald's all over the world. But that's because McDonald's are cooler in other places. Yeah. So it's like, oh, by comparison, this is neat. Yeah. You're really getting, like Italy had a cool McDonald's. Yeah. Double Decker McDonald's. McDonald's in Switzerland was also double Decker. Yeah. And their bread that they had on the burger was incredible. Incredible. Had breakfast at McDonald's in Galway in Ireland. That was neat, highly recommended. Was it double Decker? No, that was only single level. Shame that. Well, they're just putting more effort into the space they have. They did have good sausages. The last thing that's cool about this area that was mentioned was old Trinity, is an old Trinity light ship that's turned into a recording studio.

26:03 What? Is that that ship we saw? Yes. The red ship. Yeah, the red. So it's a studio, recording studio? Yeah, music recording studio. What? How do you take an environment like a ship with hard flat walls that's floating? I don't know. And make it, I had a hard time with my basement. I know. So although there is no need for a lamp in the lantern room, there is still a lot of history in there. And it is because Black Wall Lighthouse is home to Long Player. Have you ever heard of that? Long Player? Long Player. It's a continuous 1000 year long piece of music.

26:44 What? Yeah, it was generated online by musician Jim Piner, I think is his name. He's still alive. He took a recording. 1000 year long? He took a recording song of Tibetan singing bowls and repeated it six times and then programmed Long Player to mix and match the notes in different durations and pitches and stuff to create music that never repeated for 1000 years. What? Mm-hmm. And so the lantern room of Black Wall Lighthouse is the first and now one of many playing posts where you can stand and listen to the music. It's been playing since December 31st, 1999.

27:27 Wow. There's, I'll put the link in our show notes, but you can go to their website and it shows you, well, I guess I'll say they have, in 2012, they put an installation of 234 Tibetan singing bowls in the lighthouse where a 1000 minute long performance of part of Long Player's piece was played by humans. And so it was just like playing it in real life. And so those bowls are still up there. You can go and look at them and it's pretty cool. The Long Player website shows you if you were looking at this installation, which bowls were being used for how long.

28:07 That's cool. Yeah, it's very cool. And you can actually, here, I have a next. It seems very random. It is, it is random. I mean, people, it's, that's kind of what this area is all about. Oh, cats are not happy about that. Just listen to a little bit of Long Player. Also, this was the first, this is when it started in 1999. This is the first part. That was the first note? Yeah, this is the first part of Long Player. It's incredible. Joey seems to like it.

28:54 Bo is out of here. He poofed up. So. So obviously he's, he talked about it. He's not looking for melody. He's not looking for, you know, it sounding like music we want to hear. It's more about, it's quality, it's quantity over quality. But I still thought it was nice. Featuring Pitbull. I was like, what? Featuring Pitbull? So the intent of the long music is to just never repeat. Yep.

29:35 For a thousand years. It's like everything that comes out of there is like a new, a new thing. Hang on, I'm pulling up the Tibetan singing bowls. Yeah, so you can see all of the bowls. This is kind of what it's based on. If you look at their website, you can take a look. And they have lots of excerpts of past, when they played it in the past. Neat. That's very unique. So it's supposed to end, well, okay. The piece, the continuous non-repeating piece is gonna end in 2,999 at the new year. And then it'll start over.

30:18 All right, great. That looks like a cool place for a pool table. My personal opinion. That's true. So yeah, this installation's in the lighthouse, but not in the lantern room. Lantern room is just where the listening post is, where you can go and listen and just like hang out. They said it's a nice place to just look out over the city and over the water and just listen to some Tibetan singing bowls. Of course. And that's the end of Black Wall Lighthouse. Seems like a cool neighborhood. Yeah. Only lighthouse in London and a weird area. Oh, in this picture, you can see the top of Faraday effect. That's that little shed? Yes. Very tiny. I really do wonder what's in there. It would be a fun place to visit.

30:59 That's all I got. Very nice. You're very focused on. The London Lighthouse. Black Wall, cool name. Yeah, it's not bad. Trinity Bowie Wharf Light. I am petting the cat because I want him to be quiet. He's highly focused on giving Joey the good pets. It's working. I lost Bo, it made me sad. He got so scared. He didn't like the singing bowls. The long player, yeah, he is not a fan. His tail poofed up and he ran out of here. But anyway. Well, thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. You have any questions? 1800s? Because 1850 was the light bulb experiment, right? Yes. 1850 is the light, not light bulb experiment, but the beacon. Yeah, the development of electric.

31:39 That one you mentioned that used it in 1859. 57. 57. Was that in England as well? Yeah, England. Whoa, it's in a cool area. I won't tell you about it because we're probably gonna cover it someday. All right. Well, that's cool. No, I really appreciate that. I don't have any other questions. Great. Thanks everyone for listening. We hope you had a good time. Make sure you follow the link in our show notes. It's Linktree. It's a Linktree link that can take you to all of our social media accounts and where you can listen to our podcasts or send us a little coffee. We hope to see you next time on the lighthouse. Bye. Bye. Professor