The penultimate medal in the series, issued in 1998, commemorates the three hundredth anniversary of the first Eddystone lighthouse. This image shows the second, strengthened, Winstanley tower built in 1699 to replace the first tower, largely destroyed in 1698.

Winstanley constructed this first tower between 1696 and 1698. In 1697 he was captured by a French privateer and taken to France. King Louis XIV ordered his release, saying that ‘France was at war with England, not with humanity’. Winstanley wanted to experience being on the lighthouse in a storm. Unfortunately the storm he experienced was the hurricane of the 26th of November 1703, the worst storm in British history, in which 8,000 people died. After the storm both the tower and Winstanley had disappeared.