There has been a light at Point Lynas since about 1780. The present lighthouse dates from 1834 and was designed by Jesse Hartley, engineer to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board; additions were made by G. Lyster some twenty years later.

A two storey dwelling is surmounted by a square tower 11m high. At its base is a projecting semicircular lantern protected by a ditch. The lantern is flanked by a high battlemented wall which returns to the south to enclose a courtyard. It has a wall-walk carried on internal arched recesses which is now inaccessible but was probably reached from the southern curtain wall. This was demolished around 1879 when Point Lynas became a telegraph station and two new cottages were erected to accommodate extra staff; the line of the wall is marked by two turrets which might have housed stairs (both contain evidence of blocked openings). The present lantern is 4.6m in diameter and dates from about 1874; it has a cast-iron lower wall and rectangular glazing-bars take the wall height to some 3.7m, capped by a plain conical roof with a ball finial. Corbelled out above the lantern is the bay or oriel window of the pilot's look-out.

Buildings are of rubble masonry, rendered and limewashed, although the two 1879 cottages are of red brick with limestone dressings, as is the wide, two-centred arch spanning the entrance. The pointed top of the arch contains an inscribed tablet. The silhouette of the site, with the tower and battlemented wall tops, presents an unusual and distinctive appearance from the sea.
RCAHMW, 11 February 2009.