Locals told to buy earplugs to cope with faulty...

Longships Lighthouse in Lands End, Cornwall has been emitting an ear-splitting foghorn. Disgruntled Cornwall locals have been urged to wear earplugs after a historic lighthouse malfunctioned, sounding an alarm “all day and all night”. Longships Lighthouse, which lies just over a mile off Lands End, has been emitting an ear-splitting beep every 13 seconds for a week.

Image Credit: The Independent [Longships Lighthouse lies a mile off Lands End]

The alarm is designed to warn sailors of foggy conditions - but it is sounding even in clear blue skies. But locals and tourists may have to put up with it for even longer as engineers wait for a part to repair the malfunctioning fog sensing mechanism to be delivered and then, crucially, installed.

Gwennap Head lookout, part of the National Coastwatch Institution, a charity that looks after the British coast, wrote on Facebook: “Our watchkeeper has reported this interesting occurrence to HMCG Falmouth and they, in turn, have reported it to Trinity House.

“Of course, once the part has arrived, the maintenance crew will still have to wait for calm enough weather conditions to allow them to get out to the lighthouse and install it!. “In the meantime, a set of ear plugs might be a good investment.”. Local Carrie Snaden replied, saying: "Thanks for confirming that I wasn’t hearing things over the weekend.".

The lighthouse was built by Trinity House in 1875 upon rocks 1.25miles at sea at the extreme south-west of Britain’s mainland. The lighthouse keepers on Longships led a modest existence, earning £30 a year and free meals, which they had to cook in the lantern.

It was manned by four men, two of whom had to be on station at any one time, each working one-month stretches. But terrific storms meant the lantern was often obscured by crashing waves so the original tower was replaced by the current 35m tall grey granite one in 1875.

Longships Lighthouse itself has not had permanent lighthouse keepers on it since 1988. A spokesman for Trinity House said: "We are aware of the issue with the audible hazard warning signal at Longships Lighthouse, and we are looking into options for getting our Field Operations Technicians to the offshore tower.".