| Brief Description |
This Whanganui River navigation lamp is the only complete surviving light, used in Whanganui, in existence. The body is made of copper and the lens and lens shield is made of glass.
This lamp is one of about twenty navigation lights that marked the main shipping channel between the Whanganui River mouth and the Whanganui Town Wharf, several kilometres upstream. The Town Wharf was in use, although on a reduced scale, as late as 1955. By 1911, however, the main shipping focus had begun to shift to Castlecliff Harbour at the mouth of the river. The channel markers stood on a tripod of hardwood pikes driven into the riverbed, on shore-based towers along the banks of the river, or on jetties such as the now derelict Imlay and Gasworks wharves. The rock walls and wooden groynes built to maintain a deep channel can still be seen at low tide and can be a hidden danger to unwary boaters. The lights were removed in the mid-1950s when, through the closure of the Town Wharf, shipping no longer travelled upstream. Edmundsons Ltd, the makers who were based in Dublin, made many of the pilot lights, beacons and lighthouses installed in New Zealand.
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