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Flat Holm

Flat Holm
Native name: (Welsh) Ynys Echni
Flat Holm Aerial.jpg
Bristol Channel map.svg
Geography
Location Bristol Channel
Coordinates 51°22′37″N 3°07′19″W / 51.37687°N 3.12207°W / 51.37687; -3.12207Coordinates: 51°22′37″N 3°07′19″W / 51.37687°N 3.12207°W / 51.37687; -3.12207
Area 0.35 km2 (0.14 sq mi)
Length 0.63 km (0.391 mi)
Width 0.61 km (0.379 mi)
Highest elevation 32 m (105 ft)
Administration
Wales
City and County Cardiff
Community Butetown
Demographics
Population 1
Additional information
Flat Holm island website
Flat Holm Lighthouse
Ynys Echni
Flatholm Lighthouse - geograph.org.uk - 900719.jpg
Flat Holm an almost entirely solar powered lighthouse.
Flat Holm is located in Wales
Flat Holm
Wales
Location Flat Holm
Bristol Channel
Wales
United Kingdom
Coordinates 51°22′32″N 3°07′06″W / 51.375641°N 3.118455°W / 51.375641; -3.118455
Year first constructed 1737
Automated 1988
Construction stone tower
Tower shape tapered cylindrical tower with balcony and lantern
Markings / pattern white tower and lantern
Height 30 metres (98 ft)
Focal height 50 metres (160 ft)
Current lens 1st order (920mm) catadioptric fixed
Light source solar power
Intensity 17,100 candela
Range 15 nautical miles (28 km; 17 mi)
Characteristic Fl (3) WR 10s.
Admiralty number A5426
NGA number 5860
ARLHS number WAL-006
Managing agent

Trinity House


Flat Holm (Welsh: Ynys Echni) is a limestone island lying in the Bristol Channel approximately 6 km (4 mi) from Lavernock Point in the Vale of Glamorgan. It includes the most southerly point of Wales.

The island has a long history of occupation, dating at least from Anglo-Saxon and Viking age. Religious uses include visits by disciples of Saint Cadoc in the 6th century, and in 1835 it was the site of the foundation of the Bristol Channel Mission, which later became the Mission to Seafarers. A sanatorium for cholera patients was built in 1896 as the isolation hospital for the port of Cardiff. Guglielmo Marconi transmitted the first wireless signals over open sea from Flat Holm to Lavernock. Because of frequent shipwrecks a lighthouse was built on the island, which was replaced by a Trinity House lighthouse in 1737. Because of its strategic position on the approaches to Bristol and Cardiff a series of gun emplacements, known as Flat Holm Battery, were built in the 1860s as part of a line of defences, known as Palmerston Forts. On the outbreak of World War II, the island was rearmed.

It forms part of the City and County of Cardiff and is now managed by Cardiff Council's Flat Holm Project Team and designated as a Local Nature Reserve, Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Protection Area, because of the maritime grassland and rare plants such as rock sea-lavender (Limonium binervosum) and wild leek (Allium ampeloprasum). The island also has significant breeding colonies of lesser black-backed gulls (Larus fuscus), herring gulls (Larus argentatus) and great black-backed gulls (Larus marinus). It is also home to slow worms (Anguis fragilis) with larger than usual blue markings.


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