Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders
Date 2007
Event ID 606413
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/606413
The coal-lit lighthouse first exhibited in 1757, was far from efficient but the increased income from shipping dues enabled a new and improved lighthouse to be built near the coast to the west in 1793 which is still in service. It was designed by Thomas Smith, the first engineer to the Northern Lighthouse Board, and operated with parabolic facetted mirror glass reflector oil lamps.
The erection of the lighthouse was superintended by Smith’s 19-year-old assistant Robert Stevenson. Stevenson and the family of engineers he founded advised the trust, which later became the Clyde Lighthouses Trust, until 1952. It was the first work for which Stevenson received payment.
R Paxton and J Shipway 2007
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission of Thomas Telford Publishers.
