Bass Rock Lighthouse

Bass Rock Lighthouse
Location Bass Rock
Firth of Forth,
Scotland
Coordinates 56°4.6′N 2°38.3′W / 56.0767°N 2.6383°WCoordinates: 56°4.6′N 2°38.3′W / 56.0767°N 2.6383°W
Year first constructed 1902
Year first lit 1902
Automated 1988
Construction Stone
Tower shape Circular tower
Markings / pattern White
Height 20 m
Focal height 46 m
Range 16 km
Characteristic Flashing (3) White every 20 secs[1][2]

The Bass Rock Lighthouse on Bass Rock is a 20 metres (66 ft) lighthouse, built in 1902 by David Stevenson, who demolished the 13th century keep, or governor's house, and some other buildings within the castle for the stone. The Commissioners of the Northern Lighthouse Board decided that a lighthouse should be erected on the Bass Rock in July 1897 along with another light at Barns Ness near Dunbar. The cost of constructing the Bass Rock light was £8,087, a light first being shone from the rock on the evening of 1 November 1902. It has been unmanned since 1988 and is remotely monitored from the Board’s headquarters in Edinburgh. Until the automation the lighthouse was lit by incandescent gas obtained from vaporised paraffin oil converted into a bunsen gas for heating a mantle. Since that time a new Biform ML300 synchronised bifilament 20 watt electric lamp has been used.[2]

Notes

Lighthouse from the sea
  1. Nicholson, Christopher. (1995) Rock Lighthouses of Britain: The End of an Era? Caithness. Whittles p. 204.
  2. 2.0 2.1 "Bass Rock Lighthouse". Northern Lighthouse Board. Archived from the original on 2 May 2008. Retrieved 9 May 2008.