Grand Jardin lighthouse, Maritime navigation tower in Saint-Malo, France.
Grand Jardin lighthouse is a stone navigation tower standing 32 meters tall outside Saint-Malo in Brittany, guiding ships toward the harbor entrance. The structure sits on a rocky point and uses regular light signals to mark the safe passage into port.
Construction began in 1865 on the Pierre du Jardin, southwest of Cézembre, and the light was first lit on 15 April 1868 with an oil lamp flashing red and green every 20 seconds. Partly destroyed on 8 August 1944 during the fighting to liberate Saint-Malo, it was rebuilt to plans by the Malouin architects Henri Auffret and Joël Hardion and relit in 1950. It was classified as a monument historique on 3 October 2012.
The tower stands on the Pierre du Jardin, a rock southwest of Cézembre, not on the mainland. Its red-and-white profile serves as a daymark for the Grande Porte channel, aligned with Rochebonne for ships arriving from the west. Under the lantern hangs a three-metre bas-relief of Neptune carved by Francis Pellerin in 1953.
The lighthouse stands on the Pierre du Jardin, a rock southwest of Cézembre island, in the Saint-Malo passage off the Rance estuary; it is not on the mainland and cannot be reached on foot. Approach it by boat from Saint-Malo or Dinard. At night it shows two red flashes every ten seconds, visible up to 17 nautical miles.
Under the lantern hangs a three-metre bas-relief of Neptune carved by Francis Pellerin in 1953. The tower's concave profile copies the third Eddystone lighthouse; five near-identical Breton towers followed, including Les Baleineaux (1854) and Grand-Charpentier (1887). Since 1982 the light has run unmanned, now on two 15 W LED lamps visible for 17 nautical miles.
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