A Look at Lighthouses - Sepia Saturday

For this week's Sepia Saturday prompt,  we are asked to shed light on Lighthouses. 

 

The   Lismore Lighthouse on the west coast of Scotland. 

 

  This is one of my most favourite, most beautiful  sights.  Sailing out of Oban on the way to the Isle of Mull, you encounter the Lismore Lighthouse, surrounded only by hills, sea and sky.  It is so peaceful and idyllic.  The Lighthouse, situated at the entrance to Loch Linnhe, protects shipping from Oban to the Western Isles and north to Fort William and the Caledonian Canal.  Built in 1833 by Robert Stevenson, it was automated in 1965.  

Robert Stevenson was a noted civil engineer who for nearly fifty years worked for the Northern Lighthouses Board and was responsible for many structures across the UK.  His son followed him into the profession and his grandson was the writer Robert Louis Stenson.

 

Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth, East Lothian, Scotland 

 

For a number of years we took a holiday cottage overlooking the Firth of Forth, south of Edinburgh, and this was our view from the kitchen window.

The volcanic Bass Rock was reputed to have been the home of a Christian hermit and the ruins of a chapel have survived.  In the 17^th century it hosed prisoners.  Now it is sanctuary to a large gannet population of birds.  In 1902 the 350 foot lighthouse was built in by David Stevenson, who demolished the ancient keep on the site. 

Muckle Flugga Lighthouse off Unst in the Shetland  Isles

 

 Muckle Flugga Lighthouse is Britain's most northerly lighthouse off the Island of Unst (the ancestral home of my cousin’s father’s family).  It was built by Thomas and David Stevenson and first lit on 1 January 1858; it stands 64 feet high, with 103 steps to the top, and became fully automated in 1995.  Thomas’s son, writer Robert Louis Stevenson visited Unst as a young man and the island became the inspiration for the map of his most famus work “Treasure Island”. 

To my only glimpse of Eire and the lighthouse at the entrance to Cobh on the south coast of County Cork, Ireland.

  

The locality, which had had several Irish-language names, was first called Cove ("The Cove of Cork") in 1750.   It was renamed Queenstown in 1850 to commemorate a visit by Queen Victoria.  This remained the town's name until 1920 when, with the foundation of Eire as the Irish Free State, it was renamed Cobh. 

Queenstown/Cobh was the departure point for the millions of Irish people who emigrated to North America during the 19th and 20th centuries.  On 11 April 1912 Queenstown was the final port of call for the he ""Titanic"   as she set out across the Atlantic on her ill-fated maiden voyage.

In September 1966, I returned home from a year in the USA, travelling aboard the Cunard liner "Sylvania" from New York, calling at Boston and Cobh before reaching Liverpool.    Commercial jet planes services were starting to hit regular transatlantic shipping and the Liverpool-New York sailings were axed in November after my return.   I enjoyed this experience  and had my first sight  of Ireland with dawn over Cobh.  

Across the Atlantic and Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard,  where this sign with its image of a lighthouse immediately appealed to me.  

 

Martha's Vineyard off Cape Cod was founded as a colony by  Thomas Mayhew in 1642.   The settlement was later named after King James II's young son Edgar who died at the age of three in 1671.  Relations between the first settlers and their Wampanoag neighbours were harmonious and the population grew from 1900 in 1850 to in to 4067 in 2010. 

By the 19th century Edgartown was one of the main whaling ports on the American Atlantic coast.   Fascinating Fact - Maintaining the link with whales, Edgartown was used as the main location for shooting the  town of Amity in Steven Spielberg's 1975 blockbuster fim  "Jaws". 

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to share their family history through photographs

 

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