Bell Rock Lighthouse

Bell Rock Lighthouse

Off the east coast of Scotland stands a lighthouse created by Robert Stevenson.

In 1800 a 30 year old man Robert Stevenson had an idea to put a lighthouse on "Bell Rock".

Bell Rock got its name because many years before monks put a bell on the rock to warn ships that they were near the coast, but it did not stay there. It was washed away during a storm.

Stevenson always believed that his lighthouse would last. He took his plans to the board, they looked at the plans even though they did not believe that it would work, because no one had ever done it before.

Stevenson had based his plans on Edison's lighthouse the "Smedion".

In a bad storm seventy ships sunk because there was no lighthouse.

Stevenson was determined to build his lighthouse, so he tried experiments. They were not successful, because of the design and the curve at the bottom was not steep enough.

In 1804 the HMS YORK was wrecked in a storm and five hundred crew members died.

Rennie wanted to take over the lighthouse, so he went to the board and told them that the curve at the bottom was not steep enough. He asked them to let him be in charge of the project.

On the sixth of August 1806 Rennie got to be boss and Stevenson had to work for him.

When it came time to hire workers, Stevenson did it all including interviewing them. He hired sixty workers.

Finally in 1807 construction started. They were all convinced that evil spirits lived on the rock because nothing had ever stayed there.

In summer they could only work for four hours a day because for the other twenty hours it was under water.

They lived in little boats and were getting sick of it so they started to build a beacon house.

Stevenson tried to get them to work on Sundays instead of going to church. Some decided not to go to church but several refused to work on Sundays.

On the second of September 1807 one of their boats drifted away, they thought it was God punishing them. Now with only one boat, only half the crew could fit, so the other half hung off the side of the boat until they were rescued by the supply boat.