Inchkeith Lighthouse Lens

I am attending a Conservation Seminar in Edinburgh today on The Hill House, so managed to spend some time in the National Museum of Scotland.

I love the main gallery space and this large lens from the Inchkeith Lighthouse caught my attention. I like how it is situated within the gallery space.

David A Stevenson designed this dioptic lens in 1889 for the Inchkeith Lighthouse in the Firth of Forth. Inchkeith Lighthouse had been built in 1803 by Robert Stevenson and his father-in-law Thomas Smith, to protect shipping coming into the port of Leith.

Five generations of the Stevenson family designed and built lighthouses around the coast of Scotland and exported their ideas across the world. Their designs saved lives and cargo from being lost on rough and rocky coastlines.

The lens was in use at the Inchkeith Lighthouse until 1985, when the last lighthouse keeper was withdrawn and the light was automated.