No. 6 - LIGHTSHIP

This is a crayon drawing of a lightship (lower right) made by Alfred Wallis in 1941, when he was in Madron Workhouse (then known as Madron Public Assistance Institution).

With the surrounding rocks, it may represent the Sevenstones Lightship which warned ships of a hazardous submerged reef near the Isles of Scilly.

The seven or eight peaks of the reef are only visible at half-tide and it has claimed an estimated two hundred shipwrecks, including the oil tanker Torrey Canyon.

A lightship was first moored near the reef in 1841 with a crew of eleven. Life was hard, punctuated by gales that caused damage to the ship and crew - logs recording deaths from falling, head injuries, and being washed overboard. The lightship moored there now is automated and unmanned.