Lighthouse to reinstate fingerpost after 50 years

A fingerpost popular with tourists in the 1960s and 70s is to be reinstated after being absent for more than half a century.

The sign at Portland Bill Lighthouse in Dorset featured in numerous holiday snaps, and the lighthouse manager says she is often asked what happened to it.

Now, a local craftsman has offered to make a new sign which will be installed in the lighthouse garden.

It is hoped the feature will be in place for the summer holiday season.

Portland Bill is the most southerly point on Dorset's coast and the customisable fingerpost previously displayed the distance and direction to Land's End, John O'Groats and the Channel Islands.

Lighthouse managing director Ann Hopkins said: "There was a photographer who would have a box of different letters and he would make up the place where you live and take your photograph in front of it."

Among the photographer's subjects were newlyweds Wendy and Daniel Mahoney from Trysull, Worcestershire.

According to their daughter, Libby, the couple had been on honeymoon in 1971 when their photo was taken at the lighthouse.

Mrs Hopkins is hoping more people will share their old snaps before the new sign is unveiled.

She said: "We've been running Portland Bill Lighthouse for 10 years now and we kept having people asking 'where's the signpost?'

"Generation after generation of families come here and say they can remember coming when they were little."

The original sign was between the lighthouse and the stone obelisk landmark.

Mrs Hopkins said: "It's not going to be in the same position. This one is going to be within our garden.

"It will be in a place where you can take a photograph of yourself in front of the lighthouse."

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