Dark since 1988. Kept by hand since 1994.
Cape Solander Light stands on the Kurnell headland, at the mouth of Kamay Botany Bay — a 22-metre tower of Hawkesbury sandstone and cast iron, first lit in 1865 and switched off in 1988, when an automatic beacon took over the work it had done for 123 years.
Since then the Society has repointed the stone, re-glazed the lantern and conserved the lens, and opened the tower and the keeper's cottage to visitors at weekends.
Fl(3) W 15s
Three white flashes, then a long eclipse: one group every fifteen seconds. The second-order lens turned on a clockwork pedestal that was wound by hand every two hours.
The light
First lit on 1 August 1865 and decommissioned on 30 June 1988, the tower guided coastal shipping into Botany Bay for 123 years. It is the only intact 19th-century lighthouse on the Kurnell peninsula, and the only one in the county still holding its original lens.
- Built
- 1865, to a design by the Colonial Architect's Department. Hawkesbury sandstone shaft on a rubble footing; cast-iron gallery and lantern, bolted together on site.
- Optic
- Second-order dioptric lens by Chance Brothers of Smethwick, near Birmingham. Fitted in 1865 and still on its original pedestal.
- Light character
- Fl(3) W 15s — a group of three white flashes every fifteen seconds.
- Elevation
- Lantern 22 m above the ground; the light itself 34 m above mean high water.
- Nominal range
- 15 nautical miles in clear weather.
- Illuminant
- Colza oil from 1865, kerosene from 1889, electric filament from 1932.
- Keepers
- Three on station, in the two cottages, until the last was withdrawn in 1975.
- Decommissioned
- 1988. An automatic solar beacon on the headland took over the navigation duty that year, and still runs.
What we are putting back
The tower was never demolished, but by the early 1990s it was failing. Salt had opened the pointing between the sandstone courses, the lantern glazing was crazed and taking water, and the gallery balustrade had rusted through in three places. Sixty-one residents of Kurnell and Cronulla formed the Society in 1994 to stop the decline.
The work since then has been deliberately slow and reversible. Lime mortar to match the original, slaked and mixed on site. New glazing bars cut to the profiles recorded in the 1889 drawings. One section of balustrade re-cast, and marked on its underside so that a later conservator can tell it apart from the iron around it. The Chance lens was cleaned and lifted back onto its pedestal in 2011 by a crane hired for a single morning.
Nothing has been modernised for show. The clockwork drive is intact and unpowered, and it is wound by hand on open days so that visitors can hear it run.
We are not trying to make it work again. We are trying to stop it disappearing.
Visit
The tower opens every weekend of the year. The museum and the lookout are free; the climb is ticketed.
- Open
- Saturdays and Sundays, 10:00–15:00. Closed over the Christmas period and on Total Fire Ban days.
- Guided tours
- On the hour — 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, 13:00 and 14:00. Allow 45 minutes and 108 steps up to the lantern. A guide goes up with every group.
- Tickets
- $12 adult, $8 concession, $6 child aged 5–16. Free for members and for children under five. Card or cash, no surcharge. Buy at the cottage door; we do not take bookings online.
- Group visits
- Six or more, please email a week ahead so we can put a second guide on the stairs.
- Access
- The cottage museum, the ground-floor exhibition and the lookout are step-free. The tower is reached by 108 narrow stairs with two landings and is not wheelchair accessible. A screen on the ground floor shows what the gallery sees.
- Fire danger
- National parks close on Total Fire Ban days, and we close with them. The rating is posted each morning; if the park is shut, the lighthouse is shut.
Getting here
Cape Solander Drive, Kurnell, at the southern end of Kamay Botany Bay National Park. Turn off Captain Cook Drive at Kurnell village and follow Cape Solander Drive for 4 km to the lookout car park. The lighthouse is a 300-metre walk from there on a sealed path; the nearest bus stop is in the village, 4 km back.
34°01′S 151°14′E Cape Solander, Kurnell NSW 2231
Email is read by volunteers on Sundays and usually answered within a few days.
The keeper's cottage museum
Four rooms in the head keeper's cottage of 1867, holding the station's own things. Not a general collection of lighthouseiana — what was actually here, and what the people posted here wrote down.
The catalogue runs to four volumes and is still growing. Ninety-six of the 211 day books have been transcribed so far and are searchable on the reading desk; the rest are being worked through from home, a page at a time, by volunteers who have never met each other.
-
Keeper's day books
1865–1975
211 volumes of weather, shipping and lamp records, kept without a break for as long as there was a keeper to keep them.
-
Lens pedestal and clockwork drive
1865
Chance Brothers ironwork, still in the lantern room in its working position, wound by hand on open days.
-
Fog-signal trumpet
1902
Cast bronze, sounded by hand from the east side of the gallery in thick weather, in the pattern set down for the station.
-
Signal lamp and code flags
c.1925
Brass, with the flag locker, used for ship-to-shore signalling until the radio-telephone made it redundant.
-
Glass negatives
1890s–1950s
340 plates found in the cottage ceiling in 2003, in a tin that had kept the water out. All scanned; a selection is printed in the second room.
-
Wreck register
1887–1961
Vessels lost between Botany Bay and Port Hacking, with the keeper's own notes on what was seen and when the lifeboat went out.
Open with the tower, Saturdays and Sundays, 10:00–15:00. Free to enter, and step-free throughout.
Keep watch
The Society has around 140 members and no paid staff. Everything done on this headland is done by people who live nearby, in their own time.
-
Keeper days
First Saturday of the month, 8:00–13:00
Repointing, painting the gallery, weeding the headland garden, and tea at ten. Tools, gloves and a briefing are provided.
-
Tour guiding
Half a day of training, then two tours a month
You do not need to know anything about lighthouses to begin. Almost none of us did.
-
Day-book transcription
From home, at your own pace
115 volumes still to go. We send the scans and a spreadsheet; you send back the weather and the shipping.
-
Collection care
Weekday mornings, by arrangement
Cataloguing, photographing and rehousing objects in the cottage, with cotton gloves and a copy of the manual.
How to start
Email the volunteer coordinator and come to the next keeper day. Bring a hat, boots and a water bottle; we supply everything else, including the insurance and the tea.
Membership is $25 a year and includes free tower entry, the quarterly day-book digest, and a vote at the annual general meeting in August.