Canarian lighthouses, and the one that marked the end of the world
For more than fifteen hundred years, the western edge of the known world sat on a lava headland on El Hierro. That is not a metaphor: it was a cartographic convention, and it held from Ptolemy in the second century until the discovery of America.
Today there is a lighthouse on that headland. And the story of why it is there explains a great deal about why these islands have the lighthouses they have.
The meridian that was here before Greenwich
If the known world ended at El Hierro, it made sense to start counting from there. So for centuries the prime meridian, the line longitudes are measured from, ran through Punta Orchilla.
This was not just inherited habit. In the seventeenth century, Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIII convened an assembly of experts in Paris to fix it formally, and the assembly chose the westernmost point of the Canaries, the island then known as Isla de Hierro.
The meridian moved to Greenwich in the nineteenth century, and El Hierro was left with something rarer than a title: the memory of having been, for seventeen hundred years, the edge of the map.
The lighthouse that arrived very late
What stands out is how long it took to build a lighthouse on that spot.
Work began in 1924, using stone brought from the quarries of Arucas on Gran Canaria, and finished in 1930. It was lit for the first time on 25 September 1933, almost exactly ninety three years ago now.
It is hard to picture: the headland that marked the end of the known world for centuries only got its own light three generations ago.
The others, and why they stand where they do
A lighthouse is not placed where the view is good. It is placed where there is something to avoid or a corner to turn. Which is why the map of Canarian lighthouses, read backwards, is a map of hazards:
Punta de Teno, at the northwestern tip of Tenerife, at the end of a road with restricted access, beneath a cliff that sheds rock.
Punta Cumplida, in the north of La Palma, on a coast of black rock and open sea.
Punta de Jandía, at the southern end of Fuerteventura, down a long track.
Punta de Pechiguera, on Lanzarote, facing the strait that separates it from Fuerteventura.
San Cristóbal, on La Gomera.
Maspalomas, on Gran Canaria, today surrounded by town, but built when there was nothing there but dunes.
That last one tells the story of change best: the same building put up to guide ships in an empty place is now the landmark of a busy seafront promenade.
How to visit them
Three things worth knowing, because lighthouses cause more frustration than they deserve:
Almost none can be visited inside. They are still working navigational aids. What you visit is the place, not the tower.
Some have restricted road access, and not out of whim: Punta de Teno is reachable only by bus or taxi during restricted hours, precisely because of the rockfall risk.
The Orchilla track is long and remote. Go with a full tank and time to spare, and do not leave it for the end of the day.
If El Hierro tempts you, which is the island where all this makes most sense, our island guide covers the rest. For Maspalomas, the Gran Canaria guide.
And if this is exactly your kind of thing, places with history and no queue, have a look at the secret places of the islands.
Sources
Historical data on the Punta Orchilla lighthouse: work started 1924, stone from Arucas, completed 1930, first lit on 25 September 1933.
Cartographic references to Punta Orchilla as the prime meridian from Ptolemy onwards, and the assembly convened in Paris in the seventeenth century under Richelieu and Louis XIII.
Cover photo: Punta de Teno lighthouse, Buenavista del Norte, Tenerife. Photograph: Werner Wilmes, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.
