St. Mary's Lighthouse is a lighthouse on the Tyne and Wear coast, north of Whitley Bay and south of Seaton Sluice. The lighthouse stands on the tidal island of St. Mary's Island, which has been accessible from Curry's Point since 1929 at low tide via a low causeway that is submerged at high tide. Before the causeway was built, access was via stepping stones.
The 38-meter-high lighthouse, which primarily signals the mouth of the Tyne to ships approaching from the north, was built by Thomas Matthews and opened on August 31, 1898. The lighthouse replaced an older tower located on the grounds of Tynemouth Priory, which was then demolished.
When the lighthouse was electrified in 1977, its original lens was dismantled and brought to the Lighthouse Museum in Penzance. It received a smaller lens from the disused Withernsea Lighthouse. St. Mary's Lighthouse was automated in 1982. However, in 1984, the lighthouse was decommissioned by Trinity House. The original lens was returned to the tower in 2011 from the then-closed Lighthouse Museum.
Today, the tower is owned by the local authority and has been open to the public as a museum since 1994.
The lighthouse is a Grade II listed building by English Heritage.
The island and the adjacent coastline are a nature reserve.