Fife Ness Lighthouse

Heritage listing

Category B Date Added 04/12/2020 Local Authority Fife Planning Authority Fife Parish Crail NGR NO 63815 09750 Coordinates 363815, 709750 — Fife Ness Lighthouse is a major light built by the Northern Lighthouse Board to plans by the board's engineer, Peter H. Hyslop, and became operational in 1975. The lighthouse is a single rectangular building comprising the lantern and adjacent engine room and control room. The lighthouse is located around 12m above sea level on the point of Fife Ness, a prominent peninsula on the northern side of the shipping entrance to the Firth of Forth. The lighthouse is a single storey brick building measuring 5m in height, with a flat roof, and rendered walls with painted dressings. The lantern is contained within a glazed extension to the engine room. A concrete roof supported by large cantilevered concrete beams, together with painted astragals formed by extruded hollow stainless-steel tubes and welded bars, act as a framework into which the polycarbonate glazing has been fitted. The light faces in a north-east direction with an arc of around 240 towards the treacherous navigation hazard of the Carr Rocks, a partially submerged reef that extends around 2.5km out to sea from Fife Ness. Fife Ness Lighthouse remains operational (2020). Historical development The construction by the Northern Lighthouse Board of a lighthouse at Fife Ness represents the last in a series of initiatives by the board over a period of more than 150 years, to mark the treacherous reef of the Carr Rocks in order to safeguard shipping at the mouth of the Firth of Forth. While engaged in the construction of the nearby Bell Rock Lighthouse, Robert Stevenson had recorded the loss of sixteen vessels on the treacherous Carr Rock over a nine-year period, 1800-1809 (Stevenson 18

From Historic Environment Scotland under OGL v3.