Update: 01-03-2025
Place of the lighthouse
The Lismore lighthouse is located on the island of Eilean Musdile (Mansedale), a rocky islet southwest of island of Lismore in the Inner Hebrides. The islet lies in the entrance to Loch Linnhe, separated from Lismore by a sound 600 meters across. It is a low-lying rock, four hectares in size, with some grass on it. On 13 January 1830 the Northern Lighthouse Board purchased this small island from Charles Campbell Esq of Combie, for the sum of £ 500. The CalMac ferries pass close to the island on their way from Oban to the isle of Mull.
Building of the Lighthouse
The lighthouse was designed by the Northern Lighthouse Board engineer Robert Stevenson. The construction of the lighthouse took about three years. James Smith of Inverness was the contractor responsible for the construction of the lighthouse and the houses of the Lighthouse Keepers at a cost of £4,260. The lighthouse itself is a tower of 26 meters high with a iron dome at the top.
The Lismore lighthouse is a typical 19th century-style lighthouse, with a diameter of 5.8 meters at the base and walls of 1.4 meters minimum wall thickness. The masonry is coursed lime-washed rubble, with painted dressings of freestone; the stones for the lighthouse were quarried at Loch Aline. The parapet-walk runs around the lighthouse with a cast iron superstructure with two rows of square glass panes. Remarkably, the windows of the lighthouse differ from what is normally common for the Scottish lighthouses. Usually are these diamond shaped but at the Lismore lighthouse they are square. (see the second and third photo in the right column - click to enlarge.)
The tower is painted all white and stands out against the backdrop of the green hills on Lismore Island. As a result, the lighthouse is easily visible to navigation in the Sound of Mull and the Firth of Lorne by day and night and for the entrance of Caledonian Canal near Fort William. The light was first lit in October 1833.
During the construction of the lighthouse, several beautiful details were added to the lighthouse to enhance the building.
Warning systems (Light, Fog horn, Radar Beacon, AIS)
Initially, the Light showed a fixed white light. In 1910 most of the Northern Lighthouse Board's lights were changed to dioptric or Fresnel lenses but Lismore and Fidra, in the Firth of Forth, were left as the only remaining purely catoptric lights in the service.
Mr Robert Selkirk, a lineal descendant of Alexander Selkirk (inspiration for writer Daniel Defoe's fictional character Robinson Crusoe), was the first Principal Lightkeeper at Lismore and had been in the service since 1808. Lismore was a Rock Station relieved fortnightly so that the men (4 in all) had 6 weeks on the rock followed by two weeks ashore with their families at a shore station in Oban. The provisions and other light stores were brought by a boatman permanently attached to the Station who also did reliefs. There is nice film on the web about how the lighthouse used to be supplied when it was still manned.
Operational status
The biggest change took place at Lismore in June 1965 when it was converted to automatic operation at an estimated cost of £10,000. More than eleven tons of construction material had to be transported from Oban to the lighthouse on the ship MV FINGAL. After this automation, lighthouse keepers were no longer needed at this lighthouse. From that time on, the maintenance of this lighthouse is carried out from the NLB base station in Oban.
It should be noted that the Northern Lighthouse Board have sold some redundant buildings within the lighthouse complex and are not more responsible for the maintenance of these buildings.
Lady's Rock navigation beacon
Lady's Rock is an uninhabited skerry in the Inner Hebrides. It is submerged at high tide and carries a navigation beacon. In the third photo in the right column you can see the Lady's Rock beacon above the Lismore lighthouse to the upper left. The first beacon on the lady's Rock is constructed in 1907. The construction was a low stone tower and upper skeletal tower covered by aluminium panels with a light on the top. The focal hight of the light is 12 meters. The beacon has a range of 5 NM ~ 9,2 km and has a character Fl.W 6 seconds. The beacon is in 2001 automated and supplied with solar power panels.
The name Lady's Rock has the following story (for what it's worth); Lachlan Maclean of Duart decided in 1572 to murder his wife, Lady Catherine Campbell, sister of Archibald Campbell, 4th Earl of Argyll.
He rowed out to the rock one night at low tide and left his wife behind stranded on the rock. When he looked out of Duart Castle the next day, he saw that on the rock there was no sign of life of his abandoned wife, so he sent a message of condolence to the Earl of Inveraray to indicate that he intended to find the body and take his wife for the funeral. Maclean arrived neatly in Inveraray with an entourage and the coffin.
Lachlan Maclean was immediately taken to the dining hall of the castle for refreshment where Lady Catherine waiting for him at the head of the table. She was rescued during the night by a boat from Tayvallich (or Lismore) that had passed the rock. No word was said of the incident by the Earl of Argyll or his sister during the meal. Maclean was allowed to make his escape. He was murdered in his bed in Edinburgh sometime later by Sir John Campbell of Calder, another of Lady Catherine's brothers.Additional information
A Standing Stone once stood on the highest point of the island. The 2.7 metre monolith appears to have recorded the midwinter sunset and is thought to have been removed during construction of the lighthouse.
The war years provided extra work for the lightkeepers. In 1940 two lightkeepers at Lismore, under most difficult conditions, rescued two airmen clinging to a piece of wreckage in the sea.
Eilean Musdile the island on which the lighthouse of Lismore is situated has not an official anchorage but you can anchor in quiet weather off either the east or west slipway depending on the wind direction, for a short while to explore the island. It is worthwhile to stand on the terrace looking out over the swirling tide and the boats going to and from the Sound of Mull. The lighthouse, the two cottages and associated buildings and slipways, are all beautifully proportioned and constructed, particularly the curving wall bounding the path through the garden where once the lighthouse keepers grew their vegetables.
What the two very large walled fields were for, is not sure. But maybe it was for a few cows (there are some ruined byres to support this idea). The arched bridge connecting one island with the other has no obvious purpose anymore, it was built to transport materials to build the lighthouse from the original slipway opposite Lismore itself.
The cottages, and all of Eilean Musdile, are now privately owned, without the lighthouse tower itself who is still owned by the Northern Lighthouse Board.
