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Archaeology Notes

Event ID 693974

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/693974

NR15SE 15 16345 51414

Rinns of Islay Lighthouse

(flashing white) [NAT]

OS (GIS) MasterMap, February 2010.

Not to be confused with Rinns of Islay, Loch Indaal lighthouse (NR 2570 5880), for which see NR25NE 22.

Flanked by 2 Keeper Houses, built in the Georgian style, Rinns of Islay Lighthouse was built in 1825, by the engineer Robert Stevenson. A rubble built tower, it has string courses with 5 stages. Within the lighthouse is a cast-iron turnpike stair. There is also a round-ended vestibule at the ground floor level. The roof is a platform roof. A Dioptric flashing light was installed by Barbier and Bernard, Paris, in 1896. The Keeper Houses are 1 storey rubble structures with flat lead roofs and octagonal chimneys.

(Undated) information in NMRS.

(Name cited as Rinns of Islay Lighthouse, Orsay and location as NR 163 514). Built 1825 by engineer Rober Stevenson. A strikingly graceful 6-storey tower with string courses in line with the window sills. The top storey, below the lantern, is lit by circular windows. The railing round the lanern is of the diamond pattern characteristic of the work of Robert Stevenson. The tower rises from a circular base flanked by (and linked to) single-storey, flat-roofed keepers' houses with octagonal chimney stacks.

J R Hume 1977.

This lighthouse was built in 1825 at a cost of £8000 (by engineer Robert Stevenson and contractor John Gibb of Aberdeen), and incorporated a reflector light which was alternately stationary and revolving; it was electrified in 1978. There was an associated shore station at Bowmore (NR 31 59).

R W Munro 1979.

During October 1999 RCAHMS carried out an extensive photographic survey of Rinns of Islay Lighthouse. This included the lighthouse, foghorn complex, compound, associated buildings, pier and hand crane. This survey was undertaken in order to enhance and augment the holdings of the existing National Monuments Record Scotland.

Visited by RCAHMS (MKO), July 1999.

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