It stands inside the entrance to Port Phillip from Bass Strait, on the lower slope of the Queenscliff Peninsula overlooking "The Rip", a stretch of water considered one of the ten most treacherous navigable passages in the world.

[1][2] The light station was first established in 1854 with a prefabricated wooden lighthouse, which was dismantled in 1863 and moved to Point Lonsdale when the permanent lighthouse was built.

[3] The lamp and its housings were manufactured in England by Chance Brothers.

[1] The main purpose of the lighthouse is to show a white light in range with the Queenscliff High Light as a guide for ships in the main channel entering Port Phillip.

It is flanked by the skeletal Hume and Murray Towers, showing red and green lights respectively, that blink in unison with the lighthouse to provide a unique entrance pattern defining the correct course through the Rip.