At the time it was built, there was nothing between it and the sea but sand dunes, and fear of coastal erosion led to it being positioned well back.
[4] The lantern atop the tower and the Fresnel lens optic within it both came 'second-hand' from the old North Lighthouse at High Whitby,[5] which had been decommissioned shortly before the building work at Withernsea began.
Initially, the light was provided by an eight-wick paraffin lamp, which was set within the fixed first-order catadioptric optic (which had been designed and manufactured by Chance Brothers in 1858).
[8] In 1936 the light was electrified: it was given a 100 volt, 1500 watt bulb set within an eight-sided revolving third order Fresnel lens array, which displayed a white flash every three seconds with a range of 17 nautical miles (31 km; 20 mi).
These record the history of ship-wrecks in the area and detail the Withernsea lifeboats and crews who saved 87 lives between 1862 and 1913.