View of Butt of Lewis Lighthouse and principal keeper's house from WSW.

Description View of Butt of Lewis Lighthouse and principal keeper's house from WSW.

Date 20/8/1992

Catalogue Number SC 787641

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of B 74559 CN

Scope and Content Principal keeper's house and tower from west-south-west, Butt of Lewis Lighthouse, Western Isles This shows the two-storeyed, whitewashed principal keeper's house, which was the home of the highest ranking lighthouse keeper and his family. The house is three-bayed, and has a lean-to extension at the left, and a single-storeyed block to the right. The brick tower features a row of narrow windows which light the stairs and interior rooms of the lighthouse. The lighthouse is now remotely monitored from the Northern Lighthouse Board's headquarters in Edinburgh, and is one of the transmitting stations for Differential GPS (Global Positioning System), a satellite-based navigation system available to all mariners. Butt of Lewis Lighthouse was built in 1862 to designs by engineers David (1815-86) and Thomas Stevenson (1818-87) and stands on the northernmost tip of the Isle of Lewis, officially the windiest spot in the UK. The 37m-high red brick tower is surmounted by a black domed lantern, and has a light which flashes white every five seconds, with a range of 40km over the Atlantic Ocean. The keepers lived in white-painted, flat-roofed cottages around the tower until the complex was automated in 1998. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/787641

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap