Lighthouses
in the Outer Hebrides.

It’s 20:06 in the Outer Hebrides.

Outer Hebrides

From the Butt of Lewis to Scalpay.

The lighthouses of the Outer Hebrides stand where the land runs out into the Atlantic. At the northern tip of Lewis, a tall tower of red brick by David Stevenson rises from cliffs eighty feet high. It was never painted, and on a wild day the waves burst against the stacks around it. On Scalpay, the little island joined to Harris by a bridge, the first light in the Hebrides shone out in 1789, and its red and white tower followed in 1824. There is no road to it, only a marked path over the moor, with puffins on the cliffs in late spring. Wear boots and allow half a day for Scalpay.

All of the Outer Hebrides

Lighthouse of the day14 hours ago

Eilean Glas Lighthouse.

The first lighthouse in the Hebrides, lit in 1789, a red and white tower on the east coast of Scalpay.

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Did you know3 hours ago

Eilean Glas lighthouse, on the island of Scalpay off Harris, was first lit on 10 October 1789, the first lighthouse in the Outer Hebrides.

Parliament had set up the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses, later the Northern Lighthouse Board, in 1786, and Eilean Glas was among the first four stations they commissioned, with Kinnaird Head in Aberdeenshire, North Ronaldsay in Orkney and the Mull of Kintyre. Its first light burned oil in front of metal reflectors, and its first keeper was Alexander Reid, a sailor from Fraserburgh. The present white tower, about 30 metres tall with broad red bands to pick it out by day, went up in 1824 under Robert Stevenson. Scalpay has been joined to Harris by a bridge since 1997, and the lighthouse is a walk across the moor.

See Eilean Glas Lighthouse · Outer Hebrides

LighthousesJust now

Butt of Lewis Lighthouse.

The unpainted red-brick lighthouse on the cliffs at the northern tip of Lewis, built by David Stevenson and finished in 1862, with seabirds and wild seas.

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