BELL ROCK LIGHTHOUSE

The Bell Rock lighthouse, situated eleven miles beyond Fifeness, is probably the best known of Stevenson's many structures. This lighthouse replaced the “Abbot of Aberbrothocks bell” made famous in Southeys poem “Inchcape Rock”. The lighthouse was built between 1808 and 1811. Before the days of radio, a signal apparatus kept the keepers in touch with the shore at Arbroath and for emergencies a pair of carrier pigeons were kept. Despite the prominence of this light the cruiser H.M.S. Argyll was wrecked on these rocks in October 1915.

Robert Stevenson's crowning achievement was the building of the stone tower lighthouse at Bell Rock, so named because it once held a bell to warn passing sailors. A Dutch pirate removed it a year later to increase his own plunder. The Bell Rock lighthouse rose 100 feet and gently tapered from 42 feet wide at the base to 15 feet wide at the top. It has weathered the worst that nature could throw at it and stands today, with the classical look that we have come to expect in modern lighthouses. It was first lit on February 1, 1811. Robert was advanced money to write a book about the lighthouse, but took 13 years to complete it. He described himself as a "doer" not a writer.