La Jument (“the mare”) is a lighthouse in Brittany, Northwestern France. The lighthouse is built on a rock (that is also called La Jument) about 300 metres from the coast of the island of Ushant. There is also a very different lighthouse about 3 kilometres to the North, the Nividic lighthouse. Together with the Kreac’h lighthouse, they are the three most famous lighthouses of the region. It was listed as a historic monument in 2017.

This section of the coastline of Brittany, the west coast of Northern France, had always been known by sailors to be a rugged and dangerous area. Being the westernmost point of land, it is a heavily trafficked sealane, and also experiences severe weather during much of the year. As a result, the area has experienced many shipwrecks over the centuries: for example, just between 1888 and 1904, thirty-one ships were wrecked there.

Plans to build a lighthouse on La Jument started not long after the wreck of the Glasgow-built steam ship SS Drummond Castle in June, 1896, which had resulted in the deaths of around 250 people. The building works were privately financed by a wealthy Frenchman who had almost died in another shipwreck. Construction began in 1904 but the lighthouse could not be finished until 1911 because of the sea’s often challenging conditions.