Photographic copy of drawing showing plan of rock with site of tower and sections across the rock. Northern Lights, sheet No.1

Description Photographic copy of drawing showing plan of rock with site of tower and sections across the rock. Northern Lights, sheet No.1

Date 23/3/1859

Collection Records of the Northern Lighthouse Board, Edinburgh, Scotland

Catalogue Number E 25856 CN

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copy of DC 9372

Copies SC 783975

Scope and Content Plan and sections of rock, Skervuile Lighthouse, Jura, Argyll & Bute This shows a plan of the island (tinted with grey), with the site of the lighthouse clearly marked as a pink disc. The two views below show side views of the lighthouse site and its island base. A note below the central image states: 'On this side of the Rock at the distance of 300 feet the depth of water is 8 fathoms'. Thomas Stevenson was the youngest of three brothers, all of whom went on to be lighthouse engineers. After trying a variety of careers, he finally decided in 1838 to follow in his brothers' footsteps. He was put in charge of Skerryvore in 1843, and it was he who decided on the site for Dubh Artach (completed 1872). He married in 1848, and his son Robert Lewis Balfour (Robert Louis Stevenson) was born in 1850, but, to his father's disappointment, much preferred literature to engineering. Thomas died in 1886, and his funeral was said to be the largest ever seen in Edinburgh. Skervuile Lighthouse was built in 1865 to designs by engineer Thomas Stevenson (1818-87), father of the writer Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94). Its white-painted tower stands 25m high on a rocky island 4km off the east coast of Jura, and when manned it was serviced by a boatman based at Lowlandman's Bay, Jura. The lighthouse became a minor light in 1945 when it was automated. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Medium colour negative

Accession Number 1987/10

External Reference 90/S1/12

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/742555