A true tourist standard of the wild coast, in La Tremblade, in Charente-Maritime, the Coubre lighthouse will have to be completely dismantled. The advance of the coastline and that of the dune threaten the building, reveal our colleagues from the newspaper Le Littoral.
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It is a symbol of the Charentais territory doomed to disappearance: the Coubre lighthouse, at the northern end of the Gironde estuary, will eventually have to be demolished, announce our colleagues from the newspaper Le Littoral in their edition of January 17, 2025. The information, confirmed to France 3 by the prefecture of Charente-Maritime, is not currently being followed of any “deconstruction schedule”.
“The lighthouse will actually be deconstructed, a priori without any reconstruction plans behind it, but to date, without a timetable,” indicated the prefecture.
MAP – La Coubre Lighthouse – La Tremblade
Behind the announcement lies the reality of the advance of the ocean.
The coastline would now be only around 150 m from the lighthouse, whereas it was around 1.8 km when the lighthouse was built in 1904.
To the advance of the coastline, it is also necessary to add the progression of the dune.
-Ultimately, their combined effects will threaten the stability of the structure of the monument. The decision to deconstruct is therefore intended to be preventive, without us being able to estimate when it will have to be taken.
According to a source close to the matter, the critical distance will be around sixty meters. How long will it take for the ocean to eat up this distance of the coastline? Two years? Fifteen years? No one is able to evaluate it.
However, this will not be the first time that the ocean has taken over a lighthouse at this point on the coast. A first lighthouse, built of wood in 1860, collapsed in 1895. The construction of its replacement the same year was decided 500 m further back from the coastline. Insufficient. The onslaught of the ocean also affected the building in 1907, which collapsed. In the meantime, the current lighthouse, built in concrete, 1.8 km further back from the coastline, began operating in 1905.
It is he who is today doomed to deconstruction.
PORTFOLIO
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