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‘There is not a more dangerous situation upon the whole coasts of the Kingdom, or none that calls more loudly to be done than the Bell Rock …’

Robert Stevenson, 1800

THE SAFE ANCHORAGE of the Firth of Forth on the east coast of Scotland has always been a refuge for shipping hoping to escape the wild storms of the North Sea. The safety of this natural inlet, however, is considerably compromised by the presence of a massive underwater reef, the Bell Rock, lying treacherously right in the middle of the approach to the Firth of Forth. It is far enough away from the coast for landmarks to be unable to define its position, being eleven miles south of Arbroath and a similar distance west from the mouth of the Tay. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when a storm was brewing in the Forth and Tay area, those at sea faced a forbidding choice: ride out the storm in the open sea or try to find safety in the Firth of Forth and risk an encounter with the Bell Rock.

Hidden by a few feet of water under the sea, the craggy shape of the Bell Rock lay in wait for sailing ships, as it had for centuries, claiming many lives and ships and scattering them wantonly, like trophies, over its silent and mysterious escarpments. It bares itself briefly twice a day at low tide for an hour or two, and then disappears under the sea at high tide, sometimes its position given away by waves breaking on the submerged rocks and foaming surf over its rugged features. An outcrop of sandstone about a quarter of a mile long, it slopes away gently on the southern side, but to the north it rises steeply from the seabed, an unyielding barrier.

For early navigators the greatest danger was to come suddenly upon the northern cliff face. Any ship taking soundings north of the rock would find deep water and assume all was safe, only to learn the fatal error should the ship stray a few yards further south. All on board would listen for the last sounds they might hear of timber being torn and split as wood was crushed against rock. So many lives were lost, along the whole Scottish coast the notorious Bell Rock ‘breathed abroad an atmosphere of terror’.

For centuries the sea lanes were deserted, their wild highways left unchallenged, but from about the mid-eighteenth century the growth of trade in flax, hemp and goods for the weaving industry saw an increase in shipping and, as a consequence, a growing number of fatal collisions with the massive submerged cliff of the Bell Rock. The heavy toll brought pleas for some kind of warning light, although no one was sure how this could be done so far out to sea on a rock which for most of the time was under water.

The local people of the east coast had once succeeded in putting a warning on the rock. In the fourteenth century, it was said, a man called John Gedy, the abbot of Aberbrothock, was so concerned at the numbers who perished there that he set out to the rock with his monks and an enormous bell. With incredible ingenuity, they attached the bell to the rock and it rang out loud and clear above the waves warning all seafarers, an invisible church in the sea.

The good abbot, however, had not reckoned on human avarice. Soon after, a Dutch pirate called ‘Ralph the Rover’ stole the bell, in spite of its miraculous power to save life by its insistent warning ring. Ironically, he died within a year and must have regretted his act when his ship met bad weather and the great reef, and some said a deserving fate, as he and his ship disappeared beneath the waves. From that time, the rock acquired its name and became known as the ‘Bell Rock’.

The coast of Scotland is long and rugged and has many jagged peninsulas and rocky islets. Even by the late eighteenth century for hundreds of miles, according to local accounts, these desolate shores ‘were nightly plunged into darkness’. To help further the safety of these coastal waters, the Northern Lighthouse Board was established in 1786 to erect and maintain lighthouses. At that time, the warning lights to shipping were often no more than bonfires set on dangerous headlands, maintained by private landowners. When the warning fires were most needed in bad weather, they were usually put out by drenching rain.

By 1795, the board had improved on these primitive lights with seven major lighthouses, but progress was slow. They were chronically underfunded, though never short of requests to do more by worried shipowners, and especially to put a light on the Bell Rock. The Northern Lighthouse Board was well aware of the desirability of a light on the rock. Its reputation as a killer lying in wait at the entrance to the enticing safety of the Firth of Forth had travelled well beyond England. However, with little in the way of funds and the difficulties of building so far out to sea on a rock that was submerged by up to sixteen feet of water for much of the day, such a request was improbable madness not even to be considered.

There was one man, however, who had been dreaming of the impossible, of building a lighthouse on the hidden reef and allowing the whole bay of the Firth of Forth to be useful as safe anchorage. Robert Stevenson was a man of strong character who by some strange fate had been given the very opportunities he needed to fulfil his ambition. In early life his chances of success had looked poor. His mother, Jean Stevenson, had been widowed and left penniless when he was only two. Years of hardship followed, but Jean Stevenson, a deeply religious woman, struggled on to ensure an education for her son. In later life, Stevenson always remembered ‘that dark period when my mother’s ingenious and gentle spirit amidst all her difficulties never failed her’.

Jean was eventually remarried in November 1792 to an Edinburgh widower called Thomas Smith who designed and manufactured lamps. At the time, Smith was interested in increasing the brightness of his lamps. A scientific philosopher from Geneva called Ami Argand had recently developed a way of improving brightness by fitting a glass tube or chimney around the wick. Smith was experimenting with taking this work further by placing a polished tin reflector behind and partly surrounding the wick, shaped in a parabolic curve to focus the light. This gave a much brighter beam than conventional oil lamps and the lamps from his workshops were now much in demand. He was soon approached by the Northern Lighthouse Board, who employed him as their lighting engineer. At a time when lighthouses were as basic as a fire or torch on top of an open tower or simple oil lamps encased in glass lanterns, Smith began to design oil lamps with parabolic reflectors consisting of small facets of mirror glass to create a powerful beam.

When the young Robert Stevenson visited his stepfather’s workshop, he found it a magical place where uninteresting bits of metal and glass were transformed into beautiful precision-made objects. Jean could see where her son’s interests lay and, much to his delight, Stevenson was soon apprenticed to Thomas Smith. One of Thomas Smith’s duties at the Northern Lighthouse Board was to visit the board’s growing number of lighthouses. During the summer months he and Stevenson would set out by boat and appraise the situation, repairing damage and deciding on the position of new lighthouses. By about the turn of the century this responsibility fell entirely to Stevenson.

‘The seas into which his labours carried the new engineer were still scarce charted,’ his grandson, Robert Louis Stevenson, wrote years later.

The coasts still dark; his way on shore was often far beyond the convenience of any road; the isles in which he must sojourn were still partly savage. He must toss much in boats; he must often adventure on horseback through unfrequented wildernesses; he must sometimes plant his lighthouse in the very camp of wreckers; and he was continually enforced to the vicissitudes of out door life. The joy of my grandfather in this career was strong as the love of woman. It lasted him through youth and manhood, it burned strong in age and at the approach of death his last yearning was to renew these loved experiences.

From May to October, Stevenson went on his round visiting the board’s scattered lighthouses, taking much needed supplies and solving problems. These could vary from the repair of storm-damaged buildings to the question of finding new pasture for the keepers’ cow. Stevenson was also employed to map out the position of new lighthouses and soon found that some of the inhabitants of the remote islands – who supplemented their income from wrecking – were openly hostile to him.

On one journey in dense fog his ship came dangerously near sharp rocks of the Isle of Swona. The captain hoped to get help towing the ship away from the danger from a village he could see on shore. The village looked dead; everyone was asleep. To attract attention, he fired a distress signal. Stevenson watched in disbelief, as ‘door after door was opened, and in the grey light of morning, fisher after fisher was seen to come forth nightcap on head. There was no emotion, no animation, it scarce seemed any interest; not a hand was raised, but all callously waited the harvest of the sea, and their children stood by their side and waited also.’ Luckily a breeze sprang up and the ship was able to make for the open sea.

During these summer trips Stevenson learned a great deal. He could be impatient, not inclined to suffer fools gladly, but he never lacked confidence in his ability to tackle the most difficult problems. Over these years, as the Scottish coastline and its lighthouses became ingrained on his mind, he was nurturing his secret ambition to tame for ever the awful power of the Bell Rock. The fulfilment of his dream seemed remote. Stevenson was not a qualified civil engineer. As Smith’s young assistant he had little influence with the board. And he was only too aware that the commissioners believed that a light on the Bell Rock was out of the question.

Those living on the northeast coast of England and Scotland in December 1799 saw the old century dragged out with a thunderous storm of screaming winds and mountainous seas, which raged from Yorkshire to the Shetlands. All along the east coast, ships at anchorage were torn from their moorings and swept away. Those seafarers who could hear anything above the wind and crash of waves listened for the dreaded sound of wood cracking and splitting as it was thrown against rock – the sound of death. In Scotland, the haven of the Firth of Forth, guarded by the Bell Rock, was ignored. Ships preferred to make for the open sea and take their chances in the storm rather than try to steer their way past the dreaded reef. The storm lasted three days and was to sink 70 ships.

The call for a light on the Bell Rock grew louder. If there had been a lighthouse, shipowners argued, many more ships would have made for the safety of the Firth of Forth. The Northern Lighthouse Board began, at last, to give serious consideration to what they still saw as an insoluble problem and Stevenson was quick to present his own plan for a beacon-style lighthouse on cast-iron pillars. Although there was not a more dangerous situation ‘upon the whole coasts of the Kingdom,’ he argued, his design would be safe, relatively inexpensive and even pay for itself as the board collected fees from ships taking advantage of its warning light. The cautiously minded board was impressed with the idea of economy, but less sure of Stevenson’s design.

Despite his experience around the coast of Scotland, Stevenson had not yet managed to set foot on Bell Rock itself and was impatient to do so. In April 1800, he hired a boat, intending to survey the site, but the weather was too stormy to land. In May, as he sailed nearby on a journey north, it lay invisible, even at low tide. He had to wait until the neap tides of October before he could make the attempt again. At the last minute, however, the boat he had been promised was unavailable and no one was prepared to take him out to the rock, not even in calm seas. Time was running out for a landing on the rock before winter and, if he could not find a boat, he would miss the favourable tides. Finally, a fisherman was found who was prepared to take the risk; it transpired the man often braved the Bell Rock to hunt for valuable wreckage to supplement his income.

Once on the rock, Stevenson and his friend, the architect James Haldane, had just two hours in which to assess the possibilities that the rock might offer before the tide returned and the rock disappeared. It was covered in seaweed and very slippery. The surface was pitted and sea water gurgled and sucked in the fissures and gullies that criss-crossed the rock, but Stevenson was encouraged by what he saw. The exposed area at low tide was about 250 by 130 feet, revealing enough room for a lighthouse. Better still the surface of the rock was of very hard sandstone, perfect for building.

There was one problem though. He had thought that a lighthouse on pillars would offer less resistance to the sea, but when he saw the heavy swell around the rock, overwhelming the channels and inlets, pushing its bullying foamy waters into deep fissures even on a calm day, he knew his plan could not work. Visiting boats bringing supplies or a change of keeper would be shattered against the pillars in heavy seas, and the capability of the pillars to withstand the timeless beating of the waves was questionable, too. ‘I am sure no one was fonder of his own work than I was, until I saw the Bell Rock,’ he wrote. ‘I had no sooner landed than I saw my pillars tumble like the baseless fabric of a dream.’

The two hours passed all too quickly. The fisherman, who had gathered spoils from wreckage on the reef, was anxious to leave as the returning tide swirled around their feet. For Stevenson, finding the Bell Rock and standing at the centre of its watery kingdom, with nothing but the ever-encroaching sea in sight, had been a revelation. It was clear that only an immensely strong tower would have a chance of surviving in such an exposed position – a building higher than the highest waves, made of solid sandstone and granite. With these thoughts in mind, he undertook an extensive tour of English lighthouses and harbour lights in search of a model on which to base his own plans. It was a journey of some two and a half thousand miles by coach or on horseback, which took many months of 1801. He soon found there was only one such stone sea-tower already in existence. It was built on a buttress of rock about nine miles from the port of Plymouth, off the south coast in Cornwall.

The Eddystone Lighthouse, so called because of the dangerous eddies and currents that swirled around it, had withstood the fearsome gales blown in from the Atlantic since 1759. It had been built by John Smeaton, a man revered by Stevenson and considered to be the father of the civil engineering profession. Standing 70 feet high, it was made from interlocking solid Portland stone and granite blocks, which presented a tall, smooth curved shape to the elements. It had been inspired, Smeaton said, by the trunk of an oak tree. ‘An oak tree is broad at its base,’ he explained, ‘curves inward at its waist and becomes narrower towards the top. We seldom hear of a nature oak tree being uprooted.’

There had been several attempts at lighthouses on the Eddystone rocks before Smeaton’s triumphant endeavour, the most notable being the Winstanley Lighthouse, built in 1698. Henry Winstanley, the clerk of works at Audley End in Essex, was also an enthusiastic inventor and he took it upon himself to build a remarkable six-sided structure on the Eddystone rocks standing over 100 feet high. With charming balconies, gilded staterooms, decorative wrought-iron work and casement windows for fishing, the whole curious structure was topped with an octagonal cupola complete with flags, more wrought iron and a weather vane. It might have been more appropriately placed as a folly on a grand estate, but Winstanley was confident it could withstand the most furious of storms. He was so confident that he longed to be there in bad weather to observe the might of the sea and by chance he was there on 26 November 1703. That night a bad storm blew in with horizontal rain, screaming winds and waves 100 feet high. Winstanley certainly had his wish. At some time in the night, the fury of the sea took Winstanley and his pretty gilded lighthouse and tossed them to a watery oblivion. In the morning, nothing remained but a few pieces of twisted wire.

On his return from his trip in September, Stevenson immediately set about redesigning his lighthouse along the lines of Smeaton’s Eddystone. He, too, would build a solid tower that curved inwards, the walls narrowing with height and accommodating the keeper’s rooms. It would have to be at least twenty feet taller than the Eddystone, which was built on a rock above sea level, unlike the Bell Rock, which at high tide was covered by eleven to sixteen feet of water. And if it was to be taller, it would also have to be wider at the base, over 40 feet, with solid, interlocking granite stone that would ensure it was invulnerable, even in roaring seas. More than 2,500 tons of stone would be needed and Stevenson calculated that the cost of such a lighthouse would be around £42,000.

He could foresee that this cost would be a major obstacle as the annual income collected by the Northern Lighthouse Board from dues was a modest £4,386. He was right; the board thought the cost prohibitive and also questioned Stevenson’s ability to undertake such an immense and difficult project. They felt he was too young and untried for this great responsibility and pointed out that he had in fact only ever built one lighthouse before, a small lighthouse at that, and on the mainland. The board made it clear that they intended consulting established men in the civil engineering profession, men with a body of work and high reputation, such as John Rennie, who was building the London Docks.

But Stevenson was a man who stood four-square to an unfavourable wind. The sweet wine of optimism flowed in his veins in generous measure and he took the negative epistle from the board as a simple invitation to his buccaneering spirit to try again. Meanwhile the commissioners of the Northern Lighthouse Board realised they would never generate alone the huge sum needed for a lighthouse on the Bell Rock. It would need an Act of Parliament to allow them to borrow the required amount, which they would then repay from the shipping dues they collected.

The first Bill was rejected in 1803, but the subject was far from forgotten. The board was still hopeful for some sort of light and made it known that they would give consideration to any sensible plan that was submitted. A Captain Brodie stepped forward with his plan for a lighthouse on four pillars made of cast iron and a generous offer to provide, at his own expense, a temporary light until a permanent structure was in place. The board quietly shelved the lighthouse on cast-iron pillars but encouraged the temporary lights, which duly appeared, built of wood. And as each one was toppled by careless seas, it was replaced by Captain Brodie with growing impatience. Several budding engineers had proposed plans for a lighthouse on pillars, including one advocating hollow pillars, to be filled every tide by the sea, but the conservative-minded members of the Northern Lighthouse Board remained unconvinced.

The years were sliding by and Stevenson embarked on courses in mathematics and chemistry at Edinburgh University and worked on designs for other lighthouses. All the while, he was untiring in his efforts to interest the board in his now perfected design for a strong stone tower on the Smeaton plan. He envisaged a lighthouse standing over 100 feet tall, 42 feet wide at the base, with 2 feet embedded in the Bell Rock, and the whole exterior of the building encased in granite. The board were polite but cautious. If only ‘it suited my finances to erect 10 feet or 15 feet of such a building before making any call upon the Board for money,’ Stevenson declared with growing impatience, ‘I should be able to convince them that there is not the difficulty which is at first sight imagined’. While the officials procrastinated through 1804, a severe storm blew up and sank the gunship HMS York off the Bell Rock. Sixty-four guns and 491 lives were lost. With the loss of a gunship at a time of Napoleon’s unstoppable progress, the Admiralty at last woke up to the dangers of the Bell Rock.

The board, however, still took no action and somewhat dejected, in December 1805, Stevenson could see no alternative but to send his plans to John Rennie seeking his advice. Rennie was a man at the peak of his career, widely recognised as one of the best civil engineers in the country, with twenty years achievement in building bridges, canals and harbours. None the less, Stevenson felt reluctant to share his ideas after all this time, pointing out that the design had ‘cost me much, very much, trouble and consideration’. Rennie, however, was greatly impressed by his work and replied by return of post. He confirmed that only a stone building would survive the conditions of the Bell Rock and approved Stevenson’s basic plan. He even came to a similar conclusion on the cost of the enterprise.

Rennie’s approval was enough to unlock the door. Overnight, the Northern Lighthouse Board was transformed and unanimous: the commissioners wanted a lighthouse on the Bell Rock such as Rennie advocated. But first there would have to be a Bill passed by Parliament allowing the board to borrow £25,000. In April 1806, John Rennie and Robert Stevenson went in person to Westminster to explain their case to the Lords of the Treasury and the Lords of the Admiralty. Progress was slow, but eventually the Bill was passed and a date set for work to start on the infamous Bell Rock.

The Northern Lighthouse Board, mesmerised by Rennie’s reputation and charmed by his charisma, placed him in overall charge, with Stevenson merely acting as his assistant. Rennie himself, who had never built a lighthouse, argued that the light on Bell Rock should be a fairly faithful copy of Smeaton’s Eddystone Lighthouse, which was, after all, a proven success. He based the design of the lighthouse tower on this concept, but with a much greater curvature at the base to deflect the force of the waves upwards. Although a lot younger, Stevenson considered himself far more knowledgeable about lighthouses than Rennie, having now built several, and he was also familiar with the unique conditions of the Bell Rock. So without ever questioning the older man’s authority, he became quietly determined to work entirely from his own plan.

But no one had ever built a lighthouse where so much of it was underwater. Stevenson could not know for sure whether a stone lighthouse was feasible. There was an awful possibility that the critics were right. Perhaps he was attempting the impossible, endangering life and squandering money. The Bell Rock could so easily have the last word as his imagined sea citadel came tumbling down.

In spite of any misgivings and after the years of delay, Stevenson was anxious to start work on the rock no later than May 1807. His first challenge was how to manage his workforce so far out at sea. No one had ever tried to build a lighthouse on a rock only exposed for two hours in every twelve. As the tide was later by about an hour every day, there would be times when the rock was only uncovered during the night. When building the Eddystone Lighthouse of the Cornish coast, Smeaton had ferried his men to work on a daily basis, but Stevenson did not see that as a practical proposition for the Bell Rock. He decided to take the bold step of keeping his men out at sea, at first on a vessel moored at a safe distance from the rock and, later, in temporary quarters on the rock itself.

Stevenson hoped to raise a sturdy wooden building, the beacon, on the Bell Rock that would stand on timber beams well above the reach of high tide. These temporary barracks would house the men and at night provide a warning light for passing ships. He was only too aware that such a building might be considered precarious, just a few feet above the swirling waters of the North Sea with no land in sight. After all, Captain Brodie’s beacons had not braved the relentless onslaught of the waves for long and Winstanley’s more substantial lighthouse had been blown away in the night like gossamer in the wind, but there was really no alternative. Should a sudden gale blow up, it might be impossible to row back in heavy seas to their vessel, and once the tide turned the exposed rock was all too quickly drowned again by the rush of incoming water. Some kind of temporary dwelling was essential.

Before the beacon could be built, he needed a ship that would fulfil a duel role providing a dormitory for men working on the rock and also a floating light warning ships at sea. The board was obliged to provide a warning light at night while work was in progress, which would enable them to charge dues from passing shipping and start repaying the loan. For this purpose he acquired an 82-ton vessel, the Pharos – named after the first celebrated beacon tower of ancient Egypt, the Pharos of Alexandria. The Pharos was then fitted out to provide 30 bunks for the workmen, quarters for the crew and a cabin for Stevenson that would give him some privacy.

The Pharos would have to be moored one mile from the rock since it was inadvisable to be too near the escarpment should she break anchor in bad weather. Here the water was particularly deep and, as high winds could easily set the ship adrift, a special heavy mushroom-shaped anchor was cast that would dig into the seabed and act as a drag. The men would have to row each day in small boats the mile from the Pharos to their work on the Bell Rock.

The starting date in May passed by and with it went the good weather. Stevenson was becoming impatient, as preparations took longer than anticipated. Another ship had to be built, a 40-ton ship called the Smeaton that would be used to bring out supplies to the rock. Stone from the quarries was ordered and masons were hired to cut each stone into its own individual design so that it interlocked with its neighbour and gave the tower stability. There were tools to be ordered, coal for the smith, food, alcohol, water and then the men to be hired who would labour possibly for years on the rock. Stevenson preferred to hire those who had worked for him before or were recommended. He was a good judge of character and men usually stayed with him on wages of 20 shillings a week, ‘summer or winter, wet or dry’, with rations of ¹/₂ pound of beef, 1 pound of bread, 2 ounces of butter and 3 quarts of beer a day. There was, too, the added bonus of papers, which protected them from the press gangs, which were quite ruthless in claiming men for service in the navy.

Stevenson made it quite clear to his men that nights would be spent on board ship and that no man could return home to his family for a month. After a month, he reasoned, the men would have adjusted to seasickness and, hopefully, fear too. He worried that if they were allowed home earlier they probably would not return. He also required the men to work on Sunday. This proved a problem to many, so before they began the epic journey to their new home in the middle of the sea, perhaps as some sort of insurance against the unknown dangers, the men crowded into the little church at the port of Arbroath to hear prayers.

Late in the evening on 17 August 1807, the Smeaton finally set sail. Ships in the harbour were flying their colours and friends and family had gathered on the quay to see the men leave. As the ship moved slowly out of the harbour towards the darkening sky, the sound of cheers rang out across the water and echoed around the town and then was lost to the sound of the waves.

They reached the rock, hissing and frothy with surf, at dawn the next morning. There was an air of excitement at being in such a strange place. It was too early to start work with the tide still pushing water over their feet, so Stevenson raised three cheers and poured a ration of rum to the men. By 6 a.m., the water had retreated and some of the workmen began drilling holes for the beams that would support the beacon. The smith, James Dove, who would soon be busy sharpening tools, found a sheltered corner near a rock pool while other men cleared seaweed away from the pitted and uneven surface of the slippery rock. A seaweed called dulse was collected with enthusiasm; many of the men were suffering from seasickness and this was thought to be an antidote. When the tide returned, the men were thankful to row back to the relative security of their temporary accommodation on the Smeaton. As they pulled away, the rock that only minutes before had been a firm foothold was swallowed up before their eyes, with not even a ripple to mark its position.

Calm weather with whispering seas and wide, pearly-gold skies of late summer surrounded the enterprise in the first few weeks. Stevenson’s first task was to set up the forge. Everybody helped James Dove erect the iron framework which would form the hearth. This was supported by four legs set up to twelve inches into the rock and secured with iron wedges. A huge block of timber which would carry the anvil was treated in the same way and water was fast encroaching again as the weighty anvil was placed. James Dove was invariably up to his knees in water and sometimes up to his waist but this was considered a minor problem compared to keeping the forge fire from the ever-playful waves.

The next task was to start work on the temporary hut or beacon. This was uppermost in everyone’s minds since if there were an accident to the rowing boats when attempting to land, then this beacon on the Bell Rock would at least provide something to cling to until rescue arrived. Willing hands took on the difficult task of gouging out the hard sandstone that would take the stanchions supporting the uprights. Fifty-four holes in all, each two inches in diameter and eighteen inches deep, were needed to hold the iron stanchions. The upper part of the stanchions above ground would be riveted into the six massive 50-foot upright beams that formed the core framework of the beacon and other supporting beams.

One morning as the men rowed towards the rock, Stevenson was astonished to see what looked like a human figure lying on a ledge of rock. His mind was in turmoil, assuming that there must have been a shipwreck in the night and the place would be littered with dead bodies. He was afraid his men would want to leave. They would see the Bell Rock living up to its reputation as a place of dread. As soon as he landed, and without a word, he made his way quickly to where the ‘body’ lay, only to discover, with immense relief, that it was, in fact, the smith’s anvil and block.

Six days after leaving Arbroath, the men, who had been very cramped on the Smeaton, were transferred to the lightship Pharos, now anchored a mile away. Everyone was pleased to be going to the larger ship, which had a well-equipped galley and bunks for the men. Her only drawback was that she did roll rather badly even in light winds. This made it extremely difficult for the men even to get into the rowing boats for the mile-long row to the rock. Indeed, her rolling was so great ‘that the gunwale, though about five feet above the surface of the water, dipped nearly into it upon one side,’ recorded Stevenson, ‘while her keel could not be far from the surface on the other’. Everyone hoped the good weather would continue, not daring to imagine what she would be like if the weather turned. Seasickness, which had largely been conquered, now became a very big problem. Even Stevenson was affected.

On Saturday night, all hands were given a glass of rum and water and every man made a contribution to the occasion, singing, playing a tune or telling a story, so that the evening passed pleasurably, ending with the favourite toast of ‘wives and sweethearts’. By Sunday morning, however, the atmosphere was much changed. There was the seriousness of breaking the Commandments to be considered. Several were opposed to working on the Sabbath, but Stevenson pointed out that their labour was an act of mercy and must continue without fail, although he emphasised no one would be penalised for following his conscience. Prayers were said, and then Stevenson, without looking back, stepped into the boat. To his relief, he was followed by all but four of the masons.

Several days passed with work progressing well. The site for the lighthouse was marked out, a huge circle 42 feet in diameter in the middle of the reef, and the foundation holes for the beacon house were underway. On 2 September, however, their luck changed. A strong wind blew up and a crew from the Smeaton, who had rowed to the rock that morning, bringing eight workmen, was concerned that the Smeaton might break loose from her riding ropes and took its rowing boat back to check. No sooner had it reached the Smeaton than she broke from her moorings and began drifting at speed. The men who had remained on the rock were so intent on their work that they did not notice the rowing boat leave, or see that the Smeaton herself was floating quickly away.

Stevenson, alone, realised their terrible dilemma. He could see that with the wind and tide against her, the Smeaton could never get back to the Bell Rock before the tide overflowed it. There were 32 men working on the rock and only two boats, which in good weather might hold twelve men each. But now the wind was blowing in heavy seas. In such conditions, it would be fatal to put more than eight men in each boat to row the mile back to the floating light. It meant that there was transport for only half the men.

He watched the ship too far away to help and the men still involved in their work. As he stood there, trying to make sense of this insoluble problem, the waves came in with a sudden fury, overwhelming the smith’s fire, which was suddenly put out with a protesting sizzle and hiss. Stevenson himself was now ‘in a state of suspense, with almost certain destruction at hand’.

With the obscuring smoke gone and the sea rolling quickly over the rock, the workmen gathered their tools and moved to their respective boats to find, not the expected three boats, but only two. Stevenson watched helplessly as the men silently summed up the situation, only too aware of the rock fast disappearing under the sea. They waited. ‘Not a word was uttered by anyone. All appeared to be silently calculating their numbers, and looking to each other with evident marks of perplexity.’

A decision had to be made. Soon the rock would be under more than twelve feet of water; they would have to take their chances. Sixteen men could go in the boats and the rest would have to hang on somehow to the gunwales while they were rowed carefully back through the boisterous seas to the Smeaton, now three miles away. There was no point trying to row to the Pharos, although it was nearer, as she lay to windward. Those clinging on to the rowing boats would stand little chance. So which men could have a place in the boats?

Stevenson was about to issue orders, but found his mouth was so dry he could not speak. He bent to a rock pool to moisten his lips with the salty water and, as he did, heard someone shout, ‘A boat! A boat!’

Looking up he saw a ship approaching fast. By sheer good luck, James Spink in the Bell Rock pilot boat had come out from Arbroath with post and supplies. As he approached, Spink had seen the terrible dilemma of those on the rock and come to the rescue. This episode left a deep impression on Stevenson. The picture of the men silently standing by the boats awaiting their fate made him acutely aware of his responsibility for their safety and that, on this occasion, only a stroke of luck had averted a terrible catastrophe.

On 5 September 1807, the tide receded late in the day and as the sea was running a heavy swell, making the rowing boats hard to handle, Stevenson decided to cancel the trip to the rock. This proved to be a most fortunate choice as the stiff breeze turned rapidly into a hard gale and would have made rowing back from the rock in the darkness a terrifying, if not fatal, experience. The storm raged all night and the next day; the little lightship was hit by successive waves of such force that for a few seconds, as she met each wave, her rolling and pitching motion stopped, and it felt as though she had broken adrift or was sinking. The skylight in Stevenson’s cabin near the helm was broken and water poured in from the waves, which were crashing on deck. Later in the morning, Stevenson tried to dress but was so violently thrown around in his cabin he gave up.

At two o’clock in the afternoon, an enormous wave struck the ship with such terrifying force that tons of water poured into the berths below, drenching bedding and sloshing as one body from side to side as the ship moved. ‘There was not an individual on board who did not think, at the moment, that the vessel had foundered,’ wrote Stevenson, ‘and was in the act of sinking.’ The fire had been extinguished in the galley and the workmen, in darkness, were deep in prayer, swearing that should they survive, they would never go to sea again. But by the evening the storm had blown itself out and the workmen were grateful to find the crew returning the ship to normal with a fire in the galley and bedding dried.

By mid-September, the bad storms that had prevented work on the rock were replaced by quiet seas and kind weather in which Stevenson hoped to raise the six main beams of the beacon house. It was essential to get the 50-foot beams up and secure quickly as a day or two of bad weather could destroy any work left unfinished and autumn was approaching. More men were recruited from Arbroath. There were now as many as 40 carpenters, smiths and masons on Bell Rock. Their first task was to get a 30-foot mast erected to use as a derrick and a winch machine bolted down. The six principal beams – with iron bars and bolts already in place – were rowed on two rafts from Arbroath. In order to get the first four timbers securely in place in the space of one tide, the men worked in teams. They began before the tide was out, labouring deep in water, hoisting the beams into their allotted places. Others bolted them to the iron stanchions already fixed in the rock to a depth of almost twenty inches and yet more men were ready to secure the uprights with wedges made of oak then finally iron.

Every man worked with great intensity before the inevitable returning water claimed the rock. As the waves engulfed them first up to their knees and then their waists, the four main beams were put in place and securely tied to form a cone shape; the timbers were temporarily lashed together with rope at the apex and mortised into a large piece of beechwood. As the last men were leaving, up to their armpits in water, a rousing ‘three cheers’ rang out from the men already in the rowing boats. The beacon was standing bravely above the waves.