Old Hunstanton Lighthouse

Before the establishment of a lighthouse in the vicinity, it appears that sailors used the lights burning in St Edmund's Chapel to guide them into The Wash by night. and in 1838 their successor was still referred to, by John Purdy, as 'the Chapel Light, on Hunstanton Point'.

In 1663 permission was sought by a consortium of the merchants and ship-owners of Boston and Lynn to erect one or more lights near St Edmund's Point, to help guide their vessels into The Wash. That November, a warrant was issued by Charles II to John Knight, permitting him to build a light or lights 'upon the Hunston-cliffe or chappel lands', and to maintain them by levying dues on passing ships. That same year Knight's niece Rebecca and her husband James Everard were granted the right to receive the light dues for the period of the next fifty years. It seems that the structure remained standing for a time: but while two lighthouses are shown on John Cary's county map of 1787, there is only…