Monument record MHG35959 - Strathy Point Lighthouse

Created automatically by NMRS Register Utility
User: Admin, Date: Wed 13 Oct 2004
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NC86NW 42 8279 6962

Strathy Point lighthouse and its fog signal form the first all-electric lighthouse station in Scotland, being sanctioned in 1956 as a major light intended to fill a notable gap in coverage between Dunnet Head and Cape Wrath. A light in this location was first proposed in about 1900.
The station was first lighted in 1958 and automated in 1997. A two-panel optical apparatus of 250mm focal length rotates around a 1kw lamp to give a beam candlepower of 1,600,000; the lantern measures only about 7ft in diameter and this optic is only about one-quarter the size of that considered necessary twenty years earlier. The traditional round tower has been abandoned, and even the the 35ft concrete lantern tower is square, while the fog signal is a compressed-air diaphone with horns set at angles of 120 degrees to spread the sound.
The station buildings were designed by the board's engineer, P H Hyslop, and are laid out as a hollow square with covered-in passageways to give protection from the high winds on this exposed headland.
R W Munro 1979; K Allardyce 1998.

Mentioned in The Industrial Archaeology of Sutherland (A Scottish Highland Economy 1700-1900, p. 107) - Sinclair B Calder, 1974

J Aitken : 19/2/2004
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