1830: The Illuminating Debut of Scotland’s Tarbat Ness Lighthouse

January 26, 1830

On Scotland’s northeastern coast, a lighthouse on the Tarbat Ness headland first went into service. (Tarbat is derived from “tairbeart,” a Gaelic word for “isthmus”; “ness” is an Old Norse term for “headland.”) This structure was designed by the renowned civil engineer Robert Stevenson for the Northern Lighthouse Board (the general lighthouse authority for Scotland). James Smith, a resident of the city of Inverness in that region of Scotland, was the contractor responsible for building the Tarbat Ness Lighthouse.

This lighthouse was constructed in large part because of a storm in the vicinity in November 1826. This fierce storm took place in the Moray Firth, a large inlet of the North Sea, and resulted in the loss of 16 vessels altogether. The distinguishing features of the Tarbat Ness Lighthouse include its two broad red stripes. With a height of 135 feet (41 meters), the lighthouse is the third tallest in Scotland.

Photo Credit – User: Billreid (licensed under the Creative Commons Attributuion-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en)

For more information on lighthouses in northern Scotland, please check out https://www.ibiblio.org/lighthouse/sctnw.htm