Europe

Bell Rock Lighthouse

At a distance of twelve miles or roughly eighteen kilometers from the coast of Angus in Scotland is built a beautiful and mysterious Light House called the Bell Rock Lighthouse. The Bell Rock Lighthouse was meant to be a warning sign for boats and ships, and save them from the wreckage that would have been caused due to Bell Rock. Bell Rock was an especially dangerous rock before the construction of the Bell Rock Lighthouse, as with the rise in the tide, the waters of the seas would completely cover up the rock, and this would make it impossible to see with the naked eye. The construction of the Bell Rock Lighthouse came into being due to the engineering brilliance of the Scotsman, Robert Stevenson. The year when the construction of the Light House begun was 1807. The Light House worked in accordance with the Bell Rock Signal Tower, which was a station on the shore. It took six years for the completion of this project, and the tower itself was completed in 1813. The tower was built right at the entrance of Arbroath Harbor.

The Bell Rock Lighthouse first came into use with the lighting of the lamp on the 1st of February in the year 1811. One of the prime reasons that the Light House is so famous is the fact that it is the oldest Light House in the world, situated right in the sea. The tower itself of the Light House stands tall at a height of thirty five meters. The light from the Light House can be seen from a seen from a distance of close to thirty five statute miles or fifty kilometers. One of the most brilliant facts about this Light House tower, from the architectural point of view is the fact that the masonry work at the Bell Rock Lighthouse has not be retouched or redone in the two hundred years that it has existed.

The last time that the reflecting surface and the lamp itself of the Bell Rock Lighthouse was changed was in the year 1843, which is more than a century and a half back. The Signal Tower that is visited by a great many people every year, houses the Signal Tower Museum. The Signal Tower Museum is a superb place to know the historical facts behind the building and working of the Bell Rock Light House. The Bell Rock Lighthouse is said to have, to quite a large amount, taken inspiration from the Eddystone Light House, that was engineetred by John Smeaton.

The construction of the Bell Rock Lighthouse saw the use of more than two thousand five hundred granite slabs. What makes this lighthouse even more special and one of its kind is the fact that it was the last tower at sea that was built during the times when ships still worked using sails. John Rennie, a Scotsman himself, was the Chief Engineer for the Light House, and was at the site only two times whilst the Light Tower was being built. The foundation stone of the Bell Rock Lighthouse was first put into place on the laid on July 9, 1808. The light house’s mechanization was changed to the automatic range, which needed no man to be giving the signals for passing ships. This automation process began in the year 1908.