Kirjahaku

‘It will be a most desolate position for a lighthouse – the Bell Rock and Eddystone a joke to it.’ - Sir Walter Scott, 1814 Skerryvore is one of the giants of Scottish Lighthouses, renowned as being one of the most beautiful and perfect structures in the world. At 156 feet it remains the tallest lighthouse in Scotland, a fact all the more brilliant when its position – some 12 miles offshore from the remote island of Tiree – is considered. Built over a six-year period, engineer Alan Stevenson constantly battled the brutal West Coast conditions to see his masterpiece rise into the sky and finally lit in 1844. For the next 150 years this perfect structure provided imperfect living, playing host to the men forced to make it their temporary home from home and keep their watch over the treacherous reef for the ‘Safety of All’. Skerryvore, still active as an automatic lighthouse, is a testament to engineering and human endeavour over the centuries as it is fought and won against the elements – wind, water and even fire – to remain standing today.

For over two centuries the keepers of the Northern Lighthouse Board kept their watch over some of the most desolate and dangerous positions around the coast of Scotland. Over that time the service changed dramatically from a handful of pioneers with primitive lamps into a small army of professionals, embracing cutting edge technologies. Through it all they had one constant duty - to shine their lights out to sea from sunset to sunrise. Light-keeping was more than just a job; it was a way of life to be lived or endured by the whole family who went where they were told, often to the most remote corners. It was unique, and has now been lost to modernisation with the full-scale automation of the service since 1998. Twenty-five years later, as the Scottish light-keeper comes closer to extinction, it becomes more and more important to remember them, their service, commitment and sacrifice, for the Safety of All. In Salutem Omnium.

Before the age of the lighthouse Scotland’s untamed seas and perilous rocky coast too often witnessed the watery end to the mariner’s voyage. From its establishment in 1786, it was the remit of the Northern Lighthouse Board to tame these harsh seas with the building of guiding lights around Scotland’s rugged coast ‘For the Safety of All’. The history of Scotland’s lighthouses would be dominated by one family of engineers. For its first 150 years, the NLB would be shaped by four generations of the Stevenson family as lighthouse builders, innovators and inventors. From humble beginnings at Kinnaird Head, this family would perfect the engineering marvels of the Bell Rock and Skerryvore, and pioneer wireless technologies into the modern age. The lighthouse story is also one of habitation on the Stevensons’ creations on the extremities of civilisation as the light-keepers, and their families, lived and served on the wind-battered terrain of Scotland’s edge. It was a story of survival, a unique way of life, which came and went within the pages of this history. The technological breakthroughs which began with the Stevensons advanced to automation and the end of the light-keeper. Nowadays the lights still flash, but there’s nobody there.

Since its completion in 1811, the Bell Rock Lighthouse has been revered as an industrial wonder of the world. The iconic tower was built on the Inchcape Rock, a submerged reef some 12 miles off the coast of Arbroath, and now stands as the oldest sea-washed tower in the world, surviving over 200 years of violent storms and crashing waves. The construction of the Bell Rock made the name of the Stevenson family, a dynasty of lighthouse engineers who dominated Scottish lighthouse engineering for 150 years. Robert Stevenson was the first man on the reef and the last man off, a personal commitment which saw the Bell Rock’s actual Chief Engineer, John Rennie, almost deleted from the building’s history. The Bell Rock is, however, more than just Stevenson and Rennie. Not only was it a remarkable feat of engineering, but one which played host to a remarkable way of life. The light-keepers undertook nightly vigils on the rock for 177 years, their often mundane and monotonous duties occasionally being punctuated by technological improvements and world events. The keepers are now all gone but the Bell Rock continues to show its familiar flash for the safety of all.

On the promontory of Kinnaird Head, on the north-east coast of Scotland, sits a peculiarly designed lighthouse. It is an exception in history - the only lighthouse in the world to be built into a castle. Originally constructed in 1571 by Sir Alexander Fraser, the castle towered over his new town of Fraserburgh with Scotland’s forgotten university built in its shadow. For 200 years this small tower played host to lairds, lords and Jacobites before abandonment in 1750. The castle was saved from ruin in 1787 when the newly formed Northern Lighthouse Board transformed it into their first Scottish lighthouse. Every Stevenson engineer visited and left their mark on the site, while a never-ending watch of keepers kept the light flashing for 200 years. With automation in 1991 there was a second abandonment of the old tower, until it made its latest transition from lighthouse to museum. Since 1995 it has been Scotland’s most visited lighthouse, frozen in time as a monument to the manned lighthouses of old.