The first light in the area was in Tynemouth Priory - an 11th-century monastic chapel, whose monks maintained a lantern on the tower to warn passing ships of the danger of the rocks.

A first-order 'bi-valve' rotating optic was installed by Barbier & Bénard of Paris, very similar to the one they had provided the previous year for Lundy North Lighthouse;[3] it displayed a group-flashing characteristic, flashing twice every 20 seconds.

[4] As part of the electrification process the fine first-order fresnel lens was removed by Trinity House (it was later put on display in their National Lighthouse Museum in Penzance).

Its place in the tower was taken by a four-tier revolving sealed beam lamp array, manufactured by Pharos Marine;[5] it was powered by two 12-volt batteries, charged from the mains electricity supply.

The revolving sealed beam array was reused two years later (in reduced form) on the Inner Dowsing light platform in the North Sea, as part of its conversion to become 'the first major lighthouse to be run using solar power'.