The Light Fantastic
These beloved beacons have a rich and distinguished history of saving lives – and the Museum of Scottish Lighthouses celebrates their legacy
THE Forth bridges and the Falkirk Wheel might soak up much of the glory these days, but when it comes to feats of engineering, Scotland’s lighthouses are in a class of their own.
There are more than 200 of these structures dotted around the country’s rocky and often treacherous coastline.
None are manned – Fair Isle South was the last to be automated on March 31, 1998. But they continue to provide safe passage to seafarers and to cast a spell over landlubbers.
And while it’s impossible to measure the number of lives they must have saved, or the impact they have had on the country’s fortunes, the Museum of Scottish Lighthouses does a remarkable job of telling their stories.
This bright and airy building sits at Kinnaird Head, Fraserburgh, on the north-east tip of Aberdeenshire. It’s close to the town’s harbour – still a busy fishing port – and is next door to Scotland’s first “official” lighthouse.
Edinburgh inventor Thomas Smith installed the original light here on December 1, 1787, following a series of storms and devastating shipwrecks earlier in the decade. His lantern, fuelled by burning whale oil, sat
36.5 metres (120 feet) above the sea in a tower of Kinnaird Castle and could be seen as far as 22 kilometres (14 miles) offshore. Smith’s son-in-law Robert Stevenson – father of the Lighthouse Stevensons dynasty – upgraded the Kinnaird Head lamp in 1824 when he engineered a foundation, walls and a spiral staircase through the heart of the castle. His extension was still in use until 1991, when it replaced by a modern, automated light nearby. Entry to the Kinnaird Head lighthouse is included with museum admission. Guided tours run regularly throughout the day, and visitors can climb the spiral stairs to the lamp house and walk around the viewing platform. It offers a unique glimpse of a vanished way of life, says collections manager Michael Strachan.
“The lens revolves, and we can show people how it all worked and what life was like for the keepers,” he says.
“The former keepers’ quarters are very special, too. They’re just as they were when the last men left, almost as if they were frozen in time.”
The museum is packed with lighthouse memorabilia and hands-on exhibits suitable for visitors of all ages.
It’s also home to the largest collection of lighthouse lenses in the UK – and possibly the world. Each has its own distinctive design, and some look more like beautiful works of art than industrial objects.
Elsewhere, visitors can learn about the history of the Northern Lighthouse Board and get a flavour of the ingenuity, hard work and courage that went into constructing structures such as the Bell Rock lighthouse.
But the Museum of Scottish Lighthouses never forgets that this is a story of people – the engineers, builders, keepers and families who made it all possible.
A large part of the reason for setting up the museum, as automation was nearing completion, was to acknowledge this contribution, says Michael.
“The idea was to provide a place where we could remember the keepers, remember their families and all the men and women who are part of this story,” he says. “And that’s still central to what we do today.”
There are the Lighthouse Stevensons, of course – four generations of the same family, who built most of Scotland’s lighthouses over a 150-year period.
But there are also lesser-known characters such as James Ducat, Thomas Marshall and Donald Mcarthur – the three keepers of the Flannan Islands lighthouse whose mysterious disappearance in December 1900 has inspired everyone from the composer Peter Maxwell Davies to the rock group Genesis and Doctor Who.
Throw in an excellent gift shop and tea room with stunning views out to sea, and you have a surprisingly moving little museum, telling a uniquely Scottish story.
“Lighthouses came along quite late, in the 18th century, but they’ve been so important to our national story,” Michael says. “The original purpose was to stop all the wealth in Scotland ending up under the water – so there was that commercial impact.
“But when you think about all the lives they saved, and what that has meant to communities like Fraserburgh, it’s important that we have a place like this to celebrate all the men and women who made it possible.”