Bell Rock Lighthouse

Bell Rock Lighthouse

Bell Rock is the world’s oldest surviving sea lighthouse constructed on an offshore reef in Scotland and is one of the ‘Seven Wonders of the Industrial World’ because of the challenges that were faced in building the lighthouse. It has been constructed on a rock named as Bell Rock which was named so because of an attempt to install a warning bell on it in 14th century.  Though the bell was successfully installed, it was stolen by a Dutch pirate after just one year of installation.


Being an offshore reef, Bell Rock was a major cause of Shipwreck before the construction of the lighthouse in 1810, since it remained immersed for about 20 hours a day even in low tide. Around 6 ships were lost every winter and more than 60 ships were lost in one storm. The construction of Bell Rock lighthouse was proposed by the Scottish engineer Robert Stevenson in 1799 and the proposal got approved in 1806 after the all the crew of the warship HMS York died in Wreckage. Though the contract for Design and construction was given to John Rennie, the construction began in 1807 under the supervision of Robert Stevenson who was the chief assistant in the project. The whole project was completed by 1810 with a lot of difficulties and whole project was completed by Stevenson only, since he didn’t like Rennie to visit his site. The lighthouse became functional in 1811 and only 1 ship and 1 helicopter have wrecked on the site till then.

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