Archaeology Notes

Event ID 643150

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/643150

HU77SW 1 70135 71853

Lighthouse [NAT]

OS 1:10,000 map, 1973.

For associated keepers' houses (on Grunay, at HU 6960 7155), see HU67SE 6.

(Location cited as HU 702 718). Bound Skerry Lighthouse, built 1857 by engineers D and T Stevenson. A circular-section stone tower on a rock-faced masonry base.

J R Hume 1977

Name: Out Skerries (1856-8)

Location: N60 25 W0 43 North Sea, 20 miles NE of Lerwick, on Bound Skerry Island

Designed and built: David and Thomas Stevenson

Light first exhibited: 15 September 1858

Description: circular stone tower, painted white

Height of light above MHW: 144ft (44m)

Height of tower: 98ft (30m)

Light source and characteristics: W Fl (1) ev 20 secs. Acetylene: 159,000W: 20nm nominal range

Fog warning apparatus: Horn (2) ev 45 secs

Manning: unwatched (automatic since 7 April 1972), monitored from Northern Lighthouse Board HQ, Edinburgh

Replaced a temporary light on Grunay island

C Nicholson 1995.

This rock lighthouse guards the E side of Shetland, having been built in 1854 (also cited as 1857) by Alan Brebner (as resident engineer). It was one of the 29 lighthouses built between 1854 and 1878 to form the major construction programme of D and T Stevenson.

The lighthouse was bombed (at least once) in 1941, the keepers' familes were transferred from Grunay (HU67SE 6) to Lerwick in 1950, and the light was automated in 1972.

The lighthouse has also been known as Out Skerry Lighthouse and Broad Skerry Beacon; the latter term is inappropriate.

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 18 August 2008.

R W Munro 1979; K Allardyce and E M Hood 1986; S Krauskopf 2001; S Krauskopf 2003.