While looking for some information I came across
this verse by Rachel Lyman Field
I'd like to be a lighthouse
All scrubbed and painted white.
I'd like to be a lighthouse
And stay awake all night
To keep my eye on everything
That sails my patch of sea;
I'd like to be a lighthouse
With the ships all watching me.
It seemed so appropriate for this week’s prompt:
It also reminded me of a poem I learnt at school, (all
69 lines of it), called The Inchcape Rock - by Robert Southey:
No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
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The
ship was still as she could be,
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Her
sails from Heaven received no motion,
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Her
keel was steady in the ocean.
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Without
either sign or sound of their shock
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The
waves flow’d over the Inchcape Rock;
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So
little they rose, so little they fell,
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They
did not move the Inchcape Bell.
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The
Abbot of Aberbrothok
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Had
placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock;
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On a
buoy in the storm it floated and swung,
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And
over the waves its warning rung.
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When
the rock was hid by the surge’s swell,
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The
mariners heard the warning bell;
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And
then they knew the perilous Rock,
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And
blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok.
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Fortunately for all Robert Stevenson built a
lighthouse (1807 – 1810) on the reef known as the Inchcape or Bell Rock which
is located off the east coast of Angus, Scotland.
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Bell Rock Lighthouse - 2006
(by Derek Robertson - CC BY-SA 2.0 - Geograph project collection) |
This video tells how it was built. I suggest you
watch the first 4.1/2 mins. (After this it’s about the man, who became Baron
Inchcape and later the Earl of Inchcape, before ending as little more than PR for
the Inchcape motor group.)
Britain also boasts of the smallest island in the
world with a building on it – the Bishop Rock off the Isles of Scilly. The
Bishop Rock Lighthouse stands on a rock ledge 46 metres long x 16 metres wide,
4 miles west of the Scillies.
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Bishop Rock from Periglis Bay, St Agnes - 2006
(By John Davey - CC BY-SA 2.0 - Geograph project collection) |
The first lighthouse on the rock did not last long
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| First lighthouse |
It was started in 1847 but was washed away in 1850,
before it could be commissioned.
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| Second lighthouse |
The second Bishop Rock Lighthouse was started in
1858 – a solid tower structure constructed from dovetailing blocks of Cornish
granite. It soon became apparent that even this was not strong enough to resist
the large waves to which it was subjected. Cracks snaked up the sides of the
tower and vibrations caused by the waves make the lighthouse shake violently.
In 1874 waves over 40metres high broke over the tower washing away the lantern;
tons of water coming down inside the tower threatened to drown the keepers.
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| Bishop Rock Lighthouse |
In 1881 an outer stone skin built around the existing tower increased its height and strength; there have been no problems since, Changing keepers by boat was a hazardous operation. A helicopter pad added in 1976 mad this easier. The last keeper left in 1992 and the Bishop Rock Lighthouse has been fully automated since.
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Bishop Rock Lighthouse - 2005
(By Richard Knights - CC BY-SA 2.0 - Geograph project collection) |
