Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders
Date 2007
Event ID 606337
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/606337
In 1881 petitions were received by the Northern Lighthouse Commissioners requesting two fog signals and a lighthouse on Ailsa Craig, a conical rock isle rising steeply from the Irish Sea to a height of 1110 ft ten miles west of Girvan. The commissioners agreed and work started in 1882, on what was a complex station because of its remoteness, culminating in an oil-burning light being first exhibited on 15 June 1886.
The lighthouse is a stone tower about 36 ft tall and about 59 ft above sea level just above the east shore of the isle and the substantial fog sirens were erected at the north and south sides of the isle. Their compressors werepowered by 38 hp Crossley ‘Otto’ silent gas engines at the station and the compressed air was conveyed to the 20 ft high concrete trumpet houses in 212 in. diameter iron pipes.
The station was designed and installed under the direction of Board engineers T. and D. A. Stevenson. The contractor for the lighthouse and other buildings was Hill & Son, Leith; for the pumps, piping and sirens, the Calorific Fog-Signal Company, and the gas-making plant, J. Keith, Arbroath. The total cost was about £24 000.
The fog signals, which operated at a pressure of up to 75 psi, were permanently discontinued in November 1966 and replaced by a Tyfon fog signal. Until wireless communication was established in 1935 carrier pigeons from Girvan Green were used for emergency messages and when this was not practicable, a system of fires.
R Paxton and J Shipway 2007
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission of Thomas Telford Publishers.
