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Summary

Description

David and Charles Stevenson, dated 1891. Group of lighthouse buildings on flat cliff-top site enclosed within boundary wall including principal building containing engine and control rooms with 3-stage tower centred to rear (NE), foundations of former accommodation block surviving to SW, and occasional keeper's house to W. Walkway leading from main complex to fog horn house on promontory to E.

PRINCIPAL BUILDING: single storey, 11-bay (grouped 2-7-2) near- symmetrical offices with 3-stage tower centred to rear. Concrete base course and wallhead cope. Harled walls with brick quoins to corners and openings and concrete dressings and details elsewhere, all painted.

W (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: near-symmetrical, principal entrance door in centre bay with oval datestone and lighthouse armorial panel rising into stepped wallhead centred above flanked by brick pilasters.

3 closely-spaced and regularly-fenestrated bays at right; 3 closely- spaced bays at left with wide segmental arch in left bay; doors and windows respectively in penultimate and outer bays bay at left and right. Raised wallhead over centre bays.

SIDE ELEVATIONS: symmetrical, regularly fenestrated, 2-bay elevations.

E ELEVATION AND TOWER: 5-bay symmetrical elevation with tower projecting in centre bay and regular fenestration in flanking bays. 3-stage tower comprising battered shaft with narrow 2-pane fixed-lights with long and short dressings to E and W at 1st and 2nd stages respectively; cast-iron brackets supporting balcony with cast-iron handrail around upper stage comprising cylindrical murette with portholes and door to N; cast-iron cleaning path around lantern with triangular-paned glazing, surmounted by dome with arrow vane to vent.

INTERIOR: stone spiral stair with timber handrail to banister. Vertically-boarded timber lining to 1st and 2nd stages, weight-stand corbelled out into stairwell at 1st floor, and hexagonal timber and brass portholes around wall of 3rd stage.

FORMER ACCOMMODATION BLOCK: remains of concrete foundations and floors to symmetrical rectangular accommodation block demolished in 1984.

OCCASIONAL KEEPER'S HOUSE: single storey, 2-bay flat-roofed box with

9 and 6-pane timber sash and case windows in S elevation, and vertically-boarded timber door offset to right in E elevation; cast- iron downpipe with hopper.

SUNDIAL: bollard-like cast-iron plinth to sundial (now removed 1996) on square stone base.

BOUNDARY WALL AND GATEPIERS: rectangular enclosure formed by random rubble boundary wall with rubble cope and wrought-iron gate in N corner. Bull-face stone gatepiers with pyramidal caps to principal entrance; stugged stone gatepiers with bases and pyramidal caps to NE corner of complex; wrought-iron gate adjoining to W.

WALKWAY: in situ concrete cope with iron fence-posts flanking path.

FOG HORN HOUSE: single storey mono-pitch horn house, circumvented to E by battered semicircular wall with cogged iron track on wallhead supporting bell of rotating riveted iron horn. Rivetted iron oil tanks to W.

Statement of Special Interest

The foundations of the accommodation block still mark out the position layout of this building, its demolition being a significant loss to this interesting complex. The horn house, with its horn and tanks is a remarkable survival, indicating the former appearance of the (now removed) "Bressay Coo". The walkway was built to guide the keepers to the horn house in bad weather conditions.

References

Bibliography

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