North Carr Beacon

North Carr Beacon

North Carr Beacon was built between 1818 and 1821 by the Northern Lighthouse Board to designs by the board's engineer, Robert Stevenson. This unlit beacon marks Carr Rock, a treacherous tide-covered reef extending around 2 kilometres northeast from the shore at Fife Ness, a prominent peninsula on the northern side of the shipping entrance to the Firth of Forth.

The beacon stands approximately 7.5 metres above mean sea level. It is constructed of six columns of cast iron clamped to a masonry support and is surmounted by a hollow ribbed ball. The masonry support consists of four complete courses and one partial course of interlocking dovetailed masonry, the surviving remains of a circular stone tide-operated bell tower designed by Robert Stevenson that was abandoned during its construction.

History and Development

While constructing the nearby Bell Rock Lighthouse, Robert Stevenson recorded the loss of sixteen vessels on Carr Rock over a nine-year period from 1800 to 1809. The Northern Lighthouse Board responded by anchoring a floating buoy at Carr Rock in September 1809, but this frequently broke its mooring chain. The board decided to replace the buoy with a tide-operated bell tower constructed from sandstone quarried from near the mouth of the Pitmilly Burn, approximately 10 kilometres to the northwest.

In June 1813, a shore station was established on the coast adjacent to Fife Ness, and work began at the rock under Robert Stevenson's direction. Using cofferdams and pumps, workers excavated a circular base in the rock measuring 18 feet (5.4 metres) in diameter, working between tidal windows. Dovetailed stones were cut and assembled at the shore station, then shipped to site and fixed in place with Puzzolano mortar, a hydraulic cement.

Work proceeded very slowly over five years and was eventually abandoned after masonry was repeatedly swept away by storms. The final storm occurred in November 1817, shortly after completion of the last stone course. The Northern Lighthouse Board decided against rebuilding the stone tower and instead completed the beacon with a cast iron structure constructed onto the remaining stonework. The cast iron beacon was completed in September 1821, with Stevenson estimating the total construction cost at around £5,000.

Stevenson recognised that unmarked beacons were an imperfect solution for warning shipping of reefs and considered the situation at Carr Rock might be improved by additional leading lights on the Fife mainland or the Isle of May. These were not initially pursued on cost grounds, but in 1843 to 1844, a low-level lighthouse was built on the Isle of May positioned so that when its two lights aligned, mariners would know they were in line with Carr Rock to the north.

The North Carr Beacon ultimately proved unsuccessful on its own, and a series of light vessels took up station at North Carr from the 1880s onwards. The last light vessel remained in service until 1975, when the Fife Ness lighthouse became operational. The North Carr Beacon continues to mark the navigation hazard in conjunction with a cardinal navigation buoy 1.5 kilometres to the east.