Bell Rock Lighthouse celebrations hail the Scot who tamed nature

The Courier - 

The Bell Rock Lighthouse has been described as "proof that man could tame nature" by author Bella Bathurst, who has been leading the 200th anniversary celebrations in Edinburgh.

Bella gave a public talk at the Hub, at Castlehill, in the capital to mark the bicentenary, 200 years after the first beam of light shone from the top of the lighthouse constructed by Robert Stevenson and his highly skilled team.

The attempt to build a lighthouse on a reef 11 miles off the coast was one of the heroic engineering feats of the day.

The construction was several times delayed due to bad weather and the fact that workmen could only work on it when the tide was low.

Stevenson's work on the Bell Rock and elsewhere provided a fund of anecdotes of the danger in which he placed himself.

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