Geograph - photograph every grid square

Hynish on the southern tip of western Tiree was the headquarters for the construction of the Skerryvore lighthouse. It was here that dozens of workers painstakingly shaped the huge Ross of Mull granite blocks which were then shipped the 12½ miles / 20km to the Skerryvore site for them to be dovetailed together by the workmen billeted on the rock. Each stone took around 250 man hours to fashion into shape. However the first four courses were made from Tiree gneiss - and these took more like 350 man-hours each!
This mammoth project lasted from 1838 to 1844 and was overseen by Alan Stevenson (1807-65, see Wikipedia article Link )of the famous lighthouse-building family. It is worth noting however that a disastrous fire in the lantern in the 1950s put the light out of action for almost as long as it took to build the entire lighthouse a hundred years earlier.
Once the lighthouse was built, Hynish became the shore station which serviced it, providing accommodation for the keepers' families, communications and provisions. Supply and service boats would leave from the harbour here. As these boats needed servicing, a dry dock was built, however this suffered from silting up with sand. Stevenson designed an ingenious solution to this by creating a reservoir, aqueduct and sluice that allowed a million or so gallons of water to be released in a huge surge which washed the accumulated sand back out to sea when the dock was needed.
For more about the lighthouse see: Link
Hynish nowadays comprises an interesting set of buildings around a rocky promontory. There are the ruinous remains of many former buildings along with a substantial number of good condition intact ones (many refurbished by the Hebridean Trust), these all date from the time of the construction of the lighthouse or just after. The buildings around the dry dock are particularly interesting, as is the dry dock itself. These buildings house two museums, one about the building of the Skerryvore lighthouse, the other about the Treshnish islands (unfortunately at the time of our visit, both were closed due to Covid restrictions).
The signal tower remains as a prominent landmark and the keepers' cottages are (I believe) holiday lets. There is also a hostel next to the museums.
Pre-dating all of the above by many centuries, there was an ancient 'dun' or fort on the rocky outcrop to the southeast of the C19th buildings near to the former powder magazine building. For information on this ancient site see (Canmore) Link and (Hillforts) Link

Created: Thu, 22 Jul 2021, Updated: Tue, 25 Jan 2022