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Recording Your Heritage Online

Event ID 567028

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Recording Your Heritage Online

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/567028

Eilean Glas Lighthouse, 1789, Robert Kay, with Thomas Smith; remodelled, 1824 , Robert Stevenson One of the four earliest lighthouses constructed by The Northern Lighthouse Board (established in 1786) and for many years the only lighthouse in the Western Isles. William Daniell, who stayed a night here in 1818, described Kay's original tower (which survives as a stump) as 'extremely well constructed'. It was installed with Smith's new purpose-built light reflector (now in the National Museum of Scotland). Of the simple stone cottage, Daniell wrote: 'few abodes, it may be imagined, can be more lonely and dispiriting'. These early structures were succeeded by a tapering, five-stage column and pair of flat-roofed, granite keepers' cottages, with prominent chimney stacks and bold Graeco-Egyptian detail in the manner of Alan Stevenson's Ardnamurchan and Barra Head Lighthouses. A parallel concrete range comprising principal keeper's house, radio and engine rooms, was added to the north-west in 1901. Although the lighthouse is no longer manned and Eilean Glas is inaccessible by vehicle, its pier and outbuildings, and the neat stone walls traversing the salty, sheep-cropped grass, are unexpectedly well-maintained.

Taken from "Western Seaboard: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Mary Miers, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk

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