| Bude Castle, Bude Light & Sir Goldsworthy Gurney |
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| Sir Goldsworthy Gurney was a Cornish inventor of many various devices. He was born in Padstow on February 14th 1793. |
He had qualified as a Dr by the age of 20 and had a practise in Wadebridge where he was a surgeon. He was also interested in chemistry and mechanical devices. In the 1820's he moved to London. He gave up medicine in 1823 and constructed a steam boat and a coach. In 1829 one of his steam coaches travelled, at 15 miles an hour, to Bath from London and back. In 1830 he built the Bude Castle, to prove that a house could be built on sand using a concrete raft. Light was distributed into each room throughout the castle with a system of prisms and lenses using a single Bude Light. He invented this light as a form of lighting for lighthouses, each lighthouse using a different flash so sailors would know which lighthouse they were looking at. Using a standard oil lamp to produce a flame and introducing oxygen gas into the middle of the flame, he was able to produce a brighter light then previously used. The unburned carbon in the oil flame burned bright and intense, from the weak yellow flame of the oil lamp, a bright white light was produced. The light was patented in 1839. He became superintendent for the lighting and heating of The Houses Of Parliment from 1854 - 1863. Gurney was knighted in 1863 by Queen Victoria in recognition of his discoveries and inventions. In 1863 he suffered a stroke which left him partially paralysed. Retiring from public life, he moved back to cornwall living near Bude (reeds). He died in febuary 1875, and was burried at Launcells Church near Bude. |
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From the Bude Castle, he redirected the light he had created into a room in the Falcon Hotel 400 metres away. |
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The Bude Light was built to mark the millennium and to remember Sir Goldsworthy Gurney. |