Crianlarich T e route from SELECT HQ Inveraray Callander
Te Walled Garden
ILLUMINATING HISTORY Campbeltown
Mull of Kintyre Lighthouse
vanished as we inched down the steep and narrow track – suddenly I was glad I’d left the SELECT motor behind. By now the wind was so strong it was blowing the water up out of the potholes, but through the spray the Mull of Kintyre lighthouse appeared below us, perched on cliff s 240ft above the waves. Once we stopped, even opening the main gate required a risk assessment before we tried it. As we carefully nudged our way inside, I thought:
T e Mull of Kintyre Lighthouse was built in the 18th century by T omas Smith. Construction took 22 months, with the fi rst light beaming across the waves on the night of 1 November 1788. In his book, T e World’s
Lighthouses Before 1820, D Alan Stevenson wrote: “T is lighthouse was erected 240ft above the sea and inaccessible from it, but the rocky and desolate interior of Cantyre peninsula made the site
scarcely more accessible by land. Materials and stores had to be landed by boat six miles away and taken on horseback over the mountain. A journey from landing-place to lighthouse represented one day’s work.” Rebuilt between 1821
and 1830, the lighthouse was equipped with a fog signal in 1876. In 1906 the light was
altered from a fi xed to a fl ashing beacon and the power increased from 8,000
‘If it’s like this for us, how was it done with donkeys and carts in 1788, when the lighthouse was built?’
Finally, we opened the heavy doors to the tower and took shelter from the
to 281,000 candlepower. In 1976 the light was
changed to electric and the candlepower increased to 1,575,000, by using a 3.5kW electric fi lament lamp light source with catadioptric lens driven by duplicate electric motors. T e lighthouse was
automated in 1996, with the light source changed to a 250W multi vapour lamp, allowing full service to be maintained by back- up batteries during any mains failures.
gale, where, for the fi rst time in half an hour, Wullie and I were able to talk without shouting to be heard.
T e lighthouse life Wullie told me he began working on lighthouses in the late 1980s and after steadily working up from smaller projects, McMaster Electrical have now been involved in lighthouse refurbishments since 2015. For the Mull of Kintyre project, the
installation was done to BS 7671 but NLB specifi cation meant it went way beyond the requirements most of us are aware of, with Wullie and his team living at the lighthouse during the works. Throw in the little matter of DC requirements, battery charging and
Darren, left, with Wullie
Continued on page 38 >>> CABLEtalk JUNE/JULY 2020 37
Darren reaches his destination
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