Bishop Rock Lighthouse

Bishop Rock is a small skerry in the Isles of Scilly, forty-five kilometres from Cornwall. The rock lies at the western edge of the archipelago, where the Atlantic meets the shipping lanes. It holds the world’s smallest island with a building on it. The first iron tower was begun in 1847 but destroyed by a storm before it could be lit. The present granite lighthouse was finished in 1858 and first shone on 1 September that year. The lighthouse stands at the eastern end of the North Atlantic route used by early ocean liners chasing the Blue Riband. Ships such as the paddle steamer Brigand struck the rock in 1842 and the barque Falkland in 1901. Trinity House engineer James Walker designed the first stone tower, but it needed strengthening after repeated Atlantic storms. His son William Tregarthen Douglass later encased the tower in granite and raised it by twelve metres to resist the waves. Visitors reach the lighthouse by boat or helicopter. Inside, the tower contains living quarters and the lantern room with its large fixed optic. The keepers once lived on St Mary’s when off duty, while three men kept the light burning. The base is now cylindrical to deflect the sea, and iron bands bind the lower courses. From the lantern, the view stretches over the endless Atlantic swells.