la grande côte: terre nègre

Terre Nègre feu antérieur will forever be associated in my mind with the passage of cranes. On Armistice Day in 2014 we stopped off at Saint Palais, next door to La Grande Côte, to take another look at this phare amongst the genteel seaside houses overlooking the mouth of the Gironde Estuary. With our gradually improving, experienced and appreciative eye, Mme Melling and self took a turn through the deserted grounds adjacent to the installation, to better absorb this modest phare, almost ignored during our 2002 Grande Côte holiday (the lighthouse is tucked away rather). As we stared up at the tower we heard calls from on high… a large v-formation of black silhouettes slowly came into view above the trees surrounding the phare, flying high above us, heading in the direction of the Pointe de Grave. Cranes. Thirty eight beautiful cranes. A wonderful moment for us both, it made the greyness of the sky the most appropriate of back drops. I wish you had been there. A modest lighthouse under a wonder of nature.

Antérieur? Yes, there is indeed a postérieur to this one and until now I have dismissed the notion of a visit to it. But if and when we go that way again, I will see if we can tick it off. I've found it's location on my IGN Royan map; It is tucked away in the forest/sand dunes/scub, nor-nor-west of Terre Nègre (which at least does look like a proper lighthouse albeit of the domestic variety, rather than some sort of concrete brutalist concoction which is postérieur's lot). I've borrowed a Trabas snap temporarily to give you an impression of what I am assured the structure looks like currently. 

Not nice, is it? 

But even so this postérieur light has an interesting history and took the form, at one stage, of a tripod supported tower (see Huelse's vintage postcard of same, included here) which the German occupiers in WW2 took exception to (they dynamited it) hence the current ugly replacement. The Lighthouse Directory can be left to fill you in on it for now,  until I have managed to eyeball it personally. It is called Terre Nègre feu postérieur, unsurprisingly.

Terre Nègre antérieur was commissioned in 1856. Its focal plane is 39 metres from which the light source puts out white, red, or green light, depending on where you are seeing it from, occulting three times every twelve seconds. The tower is 27 metres tall centred on a single storey keeper's dwelling. This means dear reader that the tower must be built at a height of some 12 metres above sea level. You do the maths. As you can see from my excellent photographs, all taken in 2014, T-N is painted white with a vertical red stripe facing the range line on the upper third of the tower. Huelse has the expected historic postcard view.

I am fairly sure that Mme Melling was unaware that this seemingly minor lighthouse even existed less than a kilometre down the road from our modest apartment rental. Or the antérieur partner structure a kilometre or three up the road, either.  Back in 2002 I disdained such structures: after all, lighthouses should stand on wave-swept rocks or on jagged and exposed headlands. The best ones most often do. We did take a look at T-N but perhaps a bit scornfully. It is modest but fair do's, it is a phare even if it is amongst the back gardens of seaside second homes. JBH rates it highly enough to dedicate a postcard to it, (reproduced below, with thanks) so who am I to demur?  There really is nothing worse than a lighthouse snob, when all is said and done… I hate myself…

Acknowledgements as per, to JBH for his splendid postcard rendition above right, and to Huelse and Trabas, via The Lighthouse Directory, which as ever provides chapter and verse on this modest little tower and its even more modest postérieur.