Corsewall Lighthouse
Lighthouse (19th Century)
Site Name Corsewall Lighthouse
Classification Lighthouse (19th Century)
Alternative Name(s) Corsewall Point Lighthouse; Kirkcolm; Corsewall Lighthouse Hotel
Canmore ID 60412
Site Number NW97SE 15
NGR NW 98075 72614
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/60412
- Council Dumfries And Galloway
- Parish Kirkcolm
- Former Region Dumfries And Galloway
- Former District Wigtown
- Former County Wigtownshire
NW97SE 15.00 98075 72614
Corsewall Lighthouse [NAT]
OS 1:10,000 map, 1972.
NW97SE 15.01 NW 98048 72631 Foghorn
NW97SE 15.02 NW 98122 72528 Sundial
Built 1815 to a design by Robert Stevenson.
J Butt 1967.
(Location cited as NW 981 727). Corsewall Point Lighthouse, built 1815. An interesting tapering circular-section stone tower, on a castellated cylindrical base, with three projecting string courses: 86ft (26.2m) high. The keepers' houses are two storeys high.
J R Hume 1976.
This lighthouse was first lit in 1816 or 1817 to mark the Scottish side of the channel [North Channel] between the Rhinns of Galloway and the Irish Coast, the work being supervised by Lachlan Kennedy. It suffered minor bomb damage in 1941.
R W Munro 1979; K Allardyce and E M Hood 1986.
Corsewall Lighthouse, 1815, Robert Stevenson. An 86ft [26.2m] round tower, with two-storey keepers' houses, built of whin rubble and plagued with wind-borne damp for its first 20 uears: a coating of raw linseed dashed with warm sand proved the cure. Copper-dome light-room, oil-burning lamp with 12 reflectors so powerful that daytime covers were provided to prevent spontaneous combustion. Now automated, and keepers' houses sensitively converted to hotel.
J R Hume 2000.
Corsewall Lighthouse
(revolving red & white) [NAT]
OS (GIS) MasterMap, June 2009.
Project (2007)
This project was undertaken to input site information listed in 'Civil engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' by R Paxton and J Shipway, 2007.
Publication Account (2007)
This lighthouse was built by contract at the northern tip of the Rhinns of Galloway for the Northern Lighthouse Board from 1815–16. Its masonry tower is 110 ft high. The engineer was Robert Stevenson.
On his inspection voyage in December 1815, Stevenson noted that building operations were going on with all
speed and that the first stage of the tower, 30 ft high, and a part of the dwelling house were being built. His pecification for the light, published in local newspapers in October 1816 advertised ‘The light will be from oil with a reflecting and revolving apparatus . . . light of natural appearance alternating with red’. This was one of the earliest applications of this distinction.
The lighthouse was modernised in 1891 and 1910. Since the lights were automated much of the former lighthouse station now serves as a hotel.
R Paxton and J Shipway 2007
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission from Thomas Telford Publishers.
