Smeaton's Tower administrator Sir John Barrow. Smeaton's Tower has been a Grade I-listed building since 1954. It is open for visitors, who may climb 93 steps, including steep ladders, to the lantern room, and observe Plymouth Sound and the city. Smeaton's Tower Smeaton's Tower is a memorial to celebrated civil engineer John Smeaton, designer of the third and most notable Eddystone Lighthouse. A major step forward in lighthouse design, Smeaton's structure was in use from 1759 to 1877, until erosion of the ledge it was built upon forced new construction. The tower was largely dismantled and rebuilt on Plymouth Hoe in Plymouth,
Bell Rock Lighthouse chief assistant. The design was based on the earlier Eddystone Lighthouse designed by John Smeaton, which Stevenson had inspected in 1801, and which was also built on an offshore reef using interlocking stones. It also contained newer features, such as rotating lights alternating between red and white designed by the carpenter Francis Watts. Stevenson was totally responsible for construction and his written account of the work gave little or no credit to Rennie. "The apportionment of responsibility for this work led to prolonged disputes between their respective descendants, but it is now certain that while Stevenson designed the lighthouse in