Neist Point Lighthouse

August 21st, 2014 | News, Photos, Scotland

I think perhaps the highlight of my recent holiday in Scotland was the trip with Maggie Somerville to Neist Point Lighthouse on the Isle of Skye.

After a delicious lunch at the Three Chimneys Restaurant, we needed a good long walk to shed some calories. There were no good prospects immediately to hand, so we jumped in the car and headed north. The lighthouse was as at the end of the road.

Spectacular scenery surrounded us, together with many black-faced sheep.

The lighthouse is located at the end of this dramatic headland.

It was constructed in 1909 by David Alan Stephenson, a member of the famous lighthouse-building Stevenson family, and close relative of the writer Robert Louis Stevenson. It has been operating remotely since 1990, and the cottages where the lighthouse keepers once lived are now owned privately.

The lighthouse features in a photograph in the book “Harpoon at a Venture”, which tells the unlikely but fascinating tale of the attempts by Robert Maxwell (author of “Ring of Bright Water”) to establish a commercial basking shark fishing industry off the west coast of Scotland in the late 1940s.

Here is a dramatic view of the lighthouse. I can only assume that the large bell facing out to sea at the top of the cliff is a foghorn.

Once we had returned to our car, Maggie was determined to see a Highland Cow. Our quest took us to some very remote and ‘out of the way’ places until, somewhat ironically, we eventually tracked a couple down in a paddock next to the primary school in a nearby town!