Phil Austin, now 83, has lived in his 35ft high lighthouse on the banks of the Bridgewater Canal in Greater Manchester for 20 years. He enjoys watching vessels from his lantern room as they navigate the waterway below him.
Phil says, “It’s still judged as a landmark and I’m very proud of it. The views from the top are really good, and I write a lot of poetry up there. I still get people wandering down the towpath on the other side, and they all stop and have selfies with the lighthouse behind them. It is a nice quiet place to go up and sit if I want to muse, away from TV and radio. So it’s a place of solace.”
After Phil bought a small patch of wasteland from a friend, the local authority rejected his original designs for building. “When I first contacted the planning department, they had a look at the drawings and said, ‘I’m afraid not Mr Austin, you’re on the edge of a conservation area. We can’t allow you to build anything.’
“So I was a bit disappointed. But I suppose if you built something out of stone, we could get away with that. I thought for a few weeks, driving to and from work, ‘A stone building with water?’ And obviously, the word ‘lighthouse’ crept into the back of my mind.
“At first I thought it was stupid, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. I contacted the council and they said, ‘Yes, you can go ahead with it’.”
Phil said he had consulted an architect who told him the dimensions that the tall narrow structure would need to be stable. And he then enlisted the help of a builder to finish the project and over the next two years or so, a bit at a time, he built the three stories.
“I put the doors and ceilings and windows in, and then I put the wooden top floor on and covered that in mirrored aluminum.” Phil’s finished lighthouse is around 14ft in diameter at its widest, while the room on the top floor is only about 7ft wide.
After the building was completed, it became a must-see tourist destination – helping to boost trade for local businesses. Following its success, the council later relented and let Phil build a two-bed bungalow next to the lighthouse where he now lives.
Phil added: “It’s lifted the whole area. The pub across from me has expanded tremendously. They now have a big room called the Lighthouse Lounge, and it’s completely changed the whole corner.”
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