The lighthouse guided seafarers into Liverpool Bay for 133 years until being decommissioned in 1989. Seventeen feet in height, its fixed white light was first lit on January 1, 1856. A park has been created at the site of the lighthouse and the adjacent defensive battery, which dates from the time of the American Revolution. Today, the lighthouse is seasonally open to visitors.
On September 12, 2005, the Fort Point Lighthouse was declared a Nova Scotia Provincial Heritage Property.
Situated in Liverpool on the South Shore, Fort Point Lighthouse Park is the site where deMonts and Champlain landed in 1604 and a Privateers’ fort that defended the town and the trading routes in the 18th Century. The park surrounding this Provincial Heritage Property is open year-round offering picnic tables, interpretive panels and a beautiful view of Liverpool Harbour and Coffin Island Lighthouse.
Fort Point Lighthouse has stood since 1855 and is open to visitors from June to October; guided tours with costumed interpreters and viewing binoculars are available. Heritage of the “Port of Privateers” is displayed in interpretive panels, models, and audiovisual presentations. Bus tours are welcome.
From Nova Scotia Attractions
Fort Point Lighthouse
DESCRIPTION OF HISTORIC PLACE
Fort Point Lighthouse is a square shingled structure of typical light-tower design, with a pyramidal roof. Built in 1855, Fort Point Lighthouse sits in a small municipal park and is surrounded by the remnants of a colonial battery. Located in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, the Lighthouse has an impressive view of the mouth of Liverpool Harbour. Both the lighthouse and its surrounding property are included in the provincial designation.
HERITAGE VALUE
Fort Point Lighthouse is valued as a rare surviving example of pre-Confederation lighthouses, for the role it played in the history of Liverpool, and because the lighthouse and the site is integral to the historical character of the town.
The site of the Fort Point Lighthouse has played an integral role in the history of Liverpool and Nova Scotia. Since the eighteenth century Fort Point hosted a signal station and during the American Revolution an earthwork defence and palisade was erected and armed with cannons to protect the harbour from privateers. After the keeper of the nearby Coffin Island Light drowned in a storm, and the brig “Wave” was wrecked on Fort Point, the decision was made to build a lighthouse on the point. A seventeen-foot high, square wooden tower with a pyramidal roof was constructed. Its fixed white light was first lit on January 1, 1856. The lighthouse had a modest range and was designed to help vessels find their way along the coast and locate the entrance to Liverpool Bay. Throughout the nineteenth-century shipping and shipbuilding were vital to the economy of Liverpool and the lighthouse played an integral role to the functioning of the port.
The light was taken out of service in 1989 but the lighthouse itself has remained a cultural landmark for Liverpool, and a distinctive structure among Nova Scotia lighthouses. It is the third oldest surviving lighthouse in Nova Scotia. A park was created at Fort Point in the 1930’s, and a monument to privateers was erected. It is located at the end of a road, not far from the eighteenth-century Simeon Perkins House, in a neighbourhood of mainly nineteenth century buildings. The Lighthouse is open seasonally to visitors.
CHARACTER-DEFINING ELEMENTS
Character-defining elements of Fort Point Lighthouse include:
- square-shingled structure with a pyramidal roof;
- one four-paned window on each side of two lower storeys;
- attic storey containing reflector and light;
- prominent dormer at roofline with pyramid-shaped roof, facing to sea and surrounded by a balcony;
- single-pane window on each of dormer's three sides and topped with a finial;
- simple one-and-a-half storey gable-roofed addition extending to rear;
- location on shore of Liverpool Harbour;
- remnants of battery, including cannon.
From Historic Places Canada