View from SE of battery of five riveted-steel air receivers, used to store air for foghorn.

Description View from SE of battery of five riveted-steel air receivers, used to store air for foghorn.

Date 1993

Catalogue Number C 4264 CN

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 787281

Scope and Content Battery of five air receivers from south-east, St Abb's Head Lighthouse, Scottish Borders This shows the riveted metal drums which stand next to the path leading down to the lighthouse and foghorn from the keepers' houses on the cliff top. The drums were used to store air produced by the generators in the engine house, which was then used to power the foghorn on the end of the promontory. A siren fog signal (driven by hot air) was built on St Abb's Head in 1876, the first of its kind in Scotland. This was replaced by an oil-driven signal in 1911, and by a diesel-powered one in December 1955. The fog warning was finally discontinued in 1987. St Abb's Head Lighthouse was built in 1862 to designs by engineers David (1815-86) and Thomas Stevenson (1818-87). The squat tower on its single-storeyed base is surmounted by a triangular-paned lantern with domed top, and stands in a dramatic cliff-top position overlooking the North Sea near Coldingham. The complex also includes a foghorn on a single-storeyed base, and a two-storeyed, M-gabled, four-bayed cottage which was used for keepers' accommodation. The light was automated in 1993, and the keepers' houses were adapted for use as holiday homes in 1999. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Medium Colour negative

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