Archaeology Notes

Event ID 673055

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/673055

NC86NW 42 82783 69641

Strathy Point Lighthouse [NAT]

OS 1:10,560 map, 1967.

Strathy Point lighthouse and its fog signal form the first all-electric lighthouse station in Scotland, being sanctioned in 1956 as a major light intended to fill a notable gap in coverage between Dunnet Head and Cape Wrath. A light in this location was first proposed in about 1900.

The station was first lighted in 1958 and automated in 1997. A two-panel optical apparatus of 250mm focal length rotates around a 1kw lamp to give a beam candlepower of 1,600,000; the lantern measures only about 7ft in diameter and this optic is only about one-quarter the size of that considered necessary twenty years earlier. The traditional round tower has been abandoned, and even the the 35ft concrete lantern tower is square, while the fog signal is a compressed-air diaphone with horns set at angles of 120 degrees to spread the sound.

The station buildings were designed by the board's engineer, P H Hyslop, and are laid out as a hollow square with covered-in passageways to give protection from the high winds on this exposed headland.

R W Munro 1979; K Allardyce 1998.