Sanda lighthouse, lighthouse

Sanda Lighthouse was built in 1850 by the Northern Lighthouse Board to plans by engineer Alan Stevenson. It stands on Ship Rock on the southern side of Sanda Island, off the southern end of the Mull of Kintyre, in a prominent but isolated coastal clifftop location. The lighthouse was constructed to warn passing seafarers of Sanda Island itself and several small reefs and rocks adjacent to it.

The complex comprises a light tower on top of Ship Rock and a two-stage stair tower linking the lighthouse with the pier and other buildings below Ship Rock. The lighthouse and stair towers are constructed of dressed sandstone and harled and whitewashed, with flat roofs.

The light tower is a round building approximately 15 metres in height. A protruding walkway with metal railings encircles the tower head just below a dome-roofed lantern. The lantern is round with triangular glazing and diagonal metal astragals. Attached to the southeast side of the light tower is a single storey, three bay flat-roofed building with 12 pane timber-framed sash and case windows. The interior of this building has been modernised to support the continuing function of the lighthouse.

The two-stage stair tower is located to the north of the light tower and attached building, to which the uppermost level of the stair towers is connected by a small passageway. The towers are a pair of flat-roofed round sandstone buildings constructed against the cliff face of Ship Rock itself. A narrow straight passageway of the same construction links the two towers at mid-level. The lower tower has a single door and three rectangular windows, and the upper tower has four windows in their respective north sides. The mid-level passageway has two rectangular windows on its east side and one on its west, while the upper passageway has only one window on its west side. Historic photographs indicate that the two stair towers previously had decorative crenellations around the flat roofs, but these have since been removed. Internally, each stair tower accommodates a spiral staircase, giving a total of 210 stairs from the door at the bottom to the top of the light tower itself.

The extent of the hazard posed to shipping by Sanda and its adjacent reefs and rocks is evidenced by records of over 150 vessels lost in the area, including the Christiana, the Henrietta and the Hannah. A lighthouse at Sanda had been proposed from at least 1825, following the loss with all hands of the Christiana on nearby Patterson's Rock while outward bound from the Clyde. In response, the Irish board installed a light at the Maidens off the Larne coast, and Trinity House requested that the Northern Lighthouse Board move Thomas Smith's 1788 light on the Mull of Kintyre to Sanda instead. The Northern Lighthouse Board resisted this move, but with continuing wrecks, it was eventually decided that a light should be built upon Sanda. Construction began in 1849 and the light was first lit on 7 January 1850. A temporary wooden barracks was provided for accommodation until the lighthouse keepers' cottages were completed. A Notice To Mariners announced the operation of the light as a fixed red light and the introduction of a toll on passing shipping in respect of Sanda light.

Although the number of shipwrecks reduced after the lighthouse became operational, they did not stop entirely, with further wrecks including the Roberts, the Byron Darnton and the Hereford Express. In 1900, the attending boatman at Sanda, Daniel Dempsey, and his two sons were awarded the Royal National Lifeboat silver medal and vellum citation for rescuing the crew of a schooner wrecked near the lighthouse in bad weather. Sanda Lighthouse remains operational as an automated light, having been converted in 1991.