Kiddicraft Brick City – Small Lighthouse Building Set KC1302

Kiddicraft's Small Lighthouse is a compact building set — a red and white striped tower with a lighthouse keeper figure. Age 5+.

The job in this box no longer exists

The keeper figure is, strictly speaking, a historical one. Lighthouse keeping has been almost entirely abolished as an occupation, and it happened within living memory.

The work was exactly what it sounds like: living in or beside the tower, winding the clockwork that rotated the lens, trimming wicks and later tending the lamp, keeping the glass clean, sounding the fog signal, and writing down the weather. On offshore towers the keepers worked in shifts of weeks, relieved by boat when the sea allowed — and sometimes not relieved at all when it did not.

Electrification removed most of the labour, and automatic lamp changers, timers and remote monitoring removed the rest. German lights were automated progressively through the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Britain extinguished the profession on a date: the last keepers left North Foreland in Kent in November 1998.

The towers are still there and still working, watched from an office somewhere inland. What ended was somebody living in them.

A small set for a small builder

This is the compact version of set KC1301, which adds a rocky base and a sailboat. At this size it is a short build — the right length for a child working alone for the first time, and the cheapest way into the range.

In the Moin range

Set KC1301 is the large lighthouse, KC1303 the beach chair and KC1304 the fishing trawler. Moin is the North German greeting, used at any hour of the day.

Specifications

Figures: 1 KIDDIZ · Red and white striped tower · Series: Kiddicraft Moin · Age: 5+ · Compatible with leading brick systems