Archaeology Notes

Event ID 747201

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/747201

NT68NW 3 60200 87266

Lighthouse [NAT]

OS 1:10,000 map, 1992.

(Listed as Bass Rock, south side. Detached siren [fog signal] also noted).

Admiralty List of Lights 1980.

Name: Bass Rock (1902)

Location: N56 5 W2 38 Firth of Forth, 3 miles NE of North Berwick

Designed and built: David A Stevenson

Light first exhibited: 1 November 1902

Description: circular stone tower, painted white

Height of light above MHW: 151ft (46m)

Height of tower: 66ft (20m)

Light source and characteristics: W Gp Fl (3) ev 20 secs. 20W bifilament lamp: 1,100cp: nominal range 10nm

Fog warning apparatus: siren (3) ev 120 secs

Manning: unwatched (automatic since 21 December 1988). Reduced to minor light status after automation, and monitored from Northern Lighthouse Board HQ, Edinburgh

C Nicholson 1995.

Site recorded by GUARD during the Coastal Assessment Survey for Historic Scotland, 'The Firth of Forth from Dunbar to the Coast of Fife' 1996.

This rock or stack loghthouse stands on the gun-platform to the E of the 'old castle' (NT68NW 1), and close to the East Landing [name: NT 602 872]. From this position low down on the S side of the island, the short tower guards the relatively narrow passage between the island and North Berwick, rather than the main entrance into the Firth of Forth, from which it is hidden by the main mass of the island.

The lighthouse was built by D A Stevenson in 1902, and was apparently demanned during the Second World War. It was one of the last seven lighthouse in the Northern service to be lit by paraffin, not being automated until 1986.

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 7 March 2006.

R W Munro 1979; S Krauskopf 2001.