North Queensferry, Main Street, Seabank

At the foot of the main street are two nineteenth-century buildings with close associations with the Ferry Passage and shipping. The first, a small hexagonal lighthouse figure 14, was erected c 1810. Built of droved ashlar, it is capped with a copper lantern. Nearby, and of a similar date, stands the Tower House, or Signal House, or Mount Hooly figure 10. An octagonal building, with a modern extension to the north, it functioned as the waiting room for ferry travellers and the base of Captain Scott, the first superintendent of the Queensferry Passage. Captain Scott's dwelling house, Seabank Cottage, still stands on the south side of the present main road leading westwards out of the village.

Mount Hooly stands at the head of the Town Pier figure 13. Rebuilt in 1810-13, according to the plans of engineer John Rennie and extended in 1828 by Thomas Telford, this was the landing point for the ferry boats crossing from South Queensferry.

Information from ‘Historic North Queensferry and the Peninsula: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1999).