View from NW of N side of keeper's house. Digital image of D 11475.

Description View from NW of N side of keeper's house. Digital image of D 11475.

Date 5/6/1997

Collection Records of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinbu

Catalogue Number SC 786347

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of D 11475

Scope and Content Keepers' house from north-west, Arnish Point Lighthouse, Lewis, Western Isles This shows the keepers' accommodation, with its unusual advanced bays surmounted by a string-course, cornice and stepped pediment. The windows have stone dressings which contrast with the whitewashed harling on the walls. Iron shutters are fitted to each window to protect the house in bad weather. A 'Stevenson screen' is fixed to the wall next to the central door. This wooden box with louvred sides contains weather monitoring equipment (usually consisting of: horizontal maximum and minimum thermometers, vertical wet- and dry-bulb thermometers, a thermograph and a hydrograph). The screen allows unrestricted airflow around the equipment, and was invented by Thomas Stevenson (1818-87), lighthouse engineer. Arnish Point Lighthouse (also called Stornoway Lighthouse) was built from a series of iron plates to designs by engineer Alan Stevenson (1807-65) in 1853, and was the Northern Lighthouse Board's first pre-fabricated lighthouse. The whitewashed tower on a rocky promontory at the entrance to Stornoway Bay, has a domed lantern with latticed glazing and a distinctive Neo-Egyptian doorcase, and stands close to a range of single-storeyed keepers' houses. The lighthouse was automated in 1963, and the cottages developed as self-catering accommodation. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/786347

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap