Fog Horn, Sumburgh Head Lighthouse

Fog Horn, Sumburgh Head Lighthouse

A complex of lighthouse buildings on a sloping promontory site, designed by Robert Stevenson in 1821, with additional structures added in the later 19th century and 1905.

The principal structure is a symmetrical arrangement comprising a battered circular tower on a single-storey podium, flanked by two-storey, three-bay classical pavilions that provide keeper's accommodation. All buildings are harred-rendered with stugged and droved ashlar dressings, all painted. The design features base and eaves courses, margined openings, and projecting cills throughout.

The tower has a narrow eight-pane timber sash and case window to the east, with oculi to east and west at the upper floor. A balcony with a cast-iron handrail corbelled out over a moulded cornice wraps the structure, with a metal murette and vertically-boarded timber door providing access to the domed lantern containing the revolving reflector.

On the west elevation, the principal entrance sits at ground-floor level in the podium wall, with a stone stair rising to the flagged tower base at first-floor level. The centre bay of the pavilions is slightly advanced, with vertically-boarded timber doors with brass handles flanking the central door at ground floor. The pavilions have regular fenestration in the centre and outer bays at first floor, while the inner bays are blank. An ashlar-coped rubble retaining wall extends to the left, surmounted by hooped wrought-iron railing.

The east elevation is symmetrical, with the tower at the centre flanked by battered screen walls with margined doorways and corniced wallheads. Single-storey three-bay pavilions flank this side, with the centre bay advanced, though this area is now obscured by modern additions from 1996. The flanking bays have regular fenestration. Twelve-pane timber sash and case windows light the pavilions, and flat roofs with cast-iron corniced gutters and downpipes complete the structure. Paired stugged ashlar octagonal stacks centring the pavilion roofs have square bases swept up to octagonal shafts with corniced copes and circular cans.

The engine house is a single-storey, eight-bay flat-roofed block with long and short ashlar dressings and projecting cills to the windows. Its west elevation is asymmetrical with eight bays, including a small flat-roofed porch and window arrangement flanking centre, and regular fenestration in the flanking bays save for a smaller window in the penultimate bay to the left. The east elevation features a three-bay engine room to the left with a two-leaf vertically-boarded timber door in the centre bay and regular fenestration in the flanking bays. Two-leaf vertically-boarded doors with two-pane fanlights appear in bays to the outer right, with an additional plate glass window to the left. The south elevation has two bays with windows matching the west elevation, while the north elevation is blank. The interior engine room to the south retains a decorative tiled floor and tiled dado, with machinery and tanks installed by James Dove & Co of Edinburgh in 1906.

Adjacent to the south of the main group is a symmetrical two-storey, three-bay flat-roofed building. Its east elevation has a blank centre bay with vertically-boarded timber doors in the outer bays and an additional small square plate glass fixed-light to the outer left; twelve-pane timber sash and case windows light the first floor. The west elevation features a two-leaf vertically-boarded timber door centred at ground, a four-pane timber sash and case window in the bay to the left, a blind window in the bay to the right, and a twelve-pane fixed-light only at the first floor centre. A harled wallhead stack centring the side elevations is coped with a circular can.

A sundial originally stood within the complex, comprising a bollard-like cast-iron plinth with a square stone base, tapered and fluted shaft corniced at the top, though this was removed in 1996.

The fog horn house is a two-tier tower comprising a battered semi-circular plan concrete plinth with vertically disposed rivetted cast-iron oil tanks against the west elevation. A cast-iron ladder at the left rises to a platform with a semi-octagonal flat-roofed upper tier, with a cogged track on the wallhead supporting the rotating horn.

Boundary walls and gatepiers complete the complex. A flagstone rubble boundary wall, partially harl-pointed and whitewashed, encloses the site with wrought-iron gates to the south and west. Stugged and droved square gatepiers with pyramidal caps mark the principal entrance, with matching piers flanking the gate to the east. A two-tier retaining wall bounds the southeast side of the approach road, with walls flanking the lower end of the approach road terminated by matching gatepiers.