Archaeology Notes
Event ID 812932
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/812932
NA74NW 6.00 72667 46884
NA74NW 6.01 72658 46880 Keeper's House
For associated shore station and keepers' houses at Breasclete, Lewis (NB 21427 35326), see NB23NW 80.
Name: Flannan Isles (1895-9)
Location: N58 17 W7 35 Atlantic, 18 miles W of Lewis
Designed: D A Stevenson
Built: George Lawson
Light first exhibited: 7 December 1899
Description: Circular stone tower, painted white
Height of light above MHW: 331ft (101m)
Height of tower: 75ft (23m)
Light source and characteristics: W Gp Fl (2) ev 30 secs. Acetylene: 100,000 cp: 20nm nominal range
Fog warning apparatus: None
Manning: unwatched (automatic since 28 September 1971), monitored from Northern Lighthouse Board HQ, Edinburgh through Butt of Lewis lighthouse (NB56NW 8).
Site of Flannan Isles mystery (1900)
C Nicholson 1995.
This island lighthouse is situated 21 miles W of the Isle of Lewis, among the Atlantic Outliers (also known as the Seven Hunters or Seven Haly Isles. This lighthouse is one of the four in Scottish waters over 10 miles from land, the others being Sule Skerry (HX62SW 1), Dubh Artach (NM10SW 1) and Bell Rock (NO72NE 1).
It is situated on the summit of Eilean Mor, the largest island of the group, and comprises a tower 23m with a keepers' house (NA74NW 6.01) on the inland side. Access was formerly gained from landing-places on both the E and W sides of the islands, each of these having a lengthy flight of rock-cut steps up the high cliffs, and a small tramway. Boat landing at these locations was always difficult.
The lighthouse was built by DA Stevenson in 1895-9, being first lit on 7 December 1899. It was converted to automatic working on 28 September 1971, a Dalen gas light being fitted. A helicopter landing pad was built adjacent to the lighthouse at about this date.
The lighthouse is best known for the disappearance of three keepers (presumably through a heavy wave) in 1900, an incident which has been the subject of artistic representation, most recently in Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' chamber opera The Lighthouse. Otherwise, the lighthouse is noteworthy for the successive installation of an experimental wireless telegraph link (in 1907) and a radio telephone (by 1925).
Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 23 June 2008.
R W Munro 1979; [Admiralty] 1980; K Allardyce and E M Hood 1986; S Krauskopf 2001.
