Skye, Ornsay Lighthouse

Isle Ornsay Lighthouse D. & T. Stevenson, 1857 A balconied tower standing out like a white finger against the awesome backdrop of the Garbh Criochan, with double range of keepers' cottages hugging the ground above a stone-walled garden close by. Like their twins on Eilean Ban, these stand back to back and were formerly owned by Gavin Maxwell who, finding them '… primordial, without a stick of furniture, and no light or fuel ... eerie beyond belief', converted them a few years after the lighthouse was automated in 1962, into 'a single sumptuous 4-bedroomed residence .'(for a fuller description see p.21 0). Weather and wild seas soon got the better of this romantic dream and neglect took its toll; the holiday house they provide today is somewhat more basic.

[Isle Ornsay Lighthouse was known for its condensing apparatus, a special improvement in the dioptric system.]

Taken from "Western Seaboard: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Mary Miers, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk

NG71SW 8.00 71350 12183

Lighthouse [NAT]

OS 1:10,560 map, 1968.

NG71SW 8.01 NG 71286 12191 Keepers' Cottages

(Location cited as NG 713 122). Ornsay Lighthouse, Eilean Sionnaich: built 1857 by engineers D and T Stevenson. A short, circular-section tower with corbelled balcony. The single-storey keepers' houses have ridged roofs.

J R Hume 1977.

Ornsay light was built by David Stevenson to guard the S approach to the Sound of Sleat, and first lit on 10 November 1857; it used Thomas Stevenson's 'condensing' apparatus to display different strangths of light in different directions. It was converted to gas operation in 1898 and automated in 1962.

R W Munro 1979.

This rock lighthouse is sitauted on the island of Eilean Sionnaich, just off the SE coast of Skye, and on the W side of the Sound of Sleat and near the S entrance to Kyle Rhea.

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 17 August 2005.