On February 1 it will be 200 years since the Bell Rock lighthouse first warned passing vessels of the reef lurking below the waves 11 miles out from Arbroath harbour.
Throughout next year the people of the town will be celebrating the anniversary.
“We’re looking forward to welcoming visitors from across the world to Arbroath to our celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the completion of the Bell Rock Lighthouse,” said Harry Simpson, chairman of Arbroath and Area Partnership’s Year of the Light Steering Committee, which is supported by the local community planning team.
The programme of celebrations includes a firework display, a memorial service to those who have lost their lives on the Bell Rock over the centuries and a regatta. In addition, there will be regular boat trips around the Bell Rock.
“Before the lighthouse was built, the Bell Rock had claimed countless vessels,” said David Taylor, editor of the bellrock.org.uk website and great-great-great-grandson of Captain David Taylor, who was closely involved in construction of the lighthouse.
“Following the great storm of 1799 on the east coast of Scotland, at least 70 vessels came to grief, if not on the Bell Rock itself, certainly on the neighbouring shores trying to avoid it.
“However, it wasn’t until 1806 and not before the loss of the 64-gun man-of-war HMS York with all hands on board in 1804 that permission to build the lighthouse was finally granted.”Huge effortConstructing the Bell Rock Lighthouse was a massive undertaking and involved many Arbroath craftsmen, including blacksmiths, builders and stone masons.
The reef where the lighthouse was to be built was only visible for a few hours a day and work was severely restricted by the weather and the seasons. Working on the Bell Rock was only possible between April and October.
However, after only four years, the Bell Rock Lighthouse was completed and it became operational on February 1, 1811.
Northern Lighthouse Board chief executive Roger Lockwood said, “Two hundred years on, the Bell Rock lighthouse remains an impressive engineering achievement and I am sure that Robert Stevenson would be pleased to know that, in its modern automated form, the light is still successfully providing the service to mariners he originally envisaged.
“Technologies may have developed but the Bell Rock reef remains a real offshore hazard for shipping traffic on the east coast of Scotland and we will need to continue to mark it well into the future.”