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Hyskeir Lighthouse
Hyskeir Lighthouse was established in 1904. The metre high lighthouse marks the southern end of the Minch, warning of the presence of the Mills Rocks, Canna, and Hyskeir itself. It was designed by David and Charles Stevenson and constructed by Oban contractor Messrs D & J MacDougall. The white tower was manned until March 1997, becoming one of the last lighthouses in Scotland to be automated. The keepers were briefly known for their one-hole golf course following their appearance on TV. Now controlled by the Northern Lighthouse Board in Edinburgh, it displays three white flashes every thirty seconds. Hyskeir and its lighthouse feature extensively in Peter Hill's book ''Stargazing: Memoirs of a Young Lighthouse Keeper.'' See also * List of lighthouses in Scotland * List of Northern Lighthouse Board lighthouses This is a list of the currently operational lighthouses of the Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB). The list is divided by geographical location, and then by whether th ...
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Lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals, reefs, rocks, and safe entries to harbors; they also assist in aerial navigation. Once widely used, the number of operational lighthouses has declined due to the expense of maintenance and has become uneconomical since the advent of much cheaper, more sophisticated and effective electronic navigational systems. History Ancient lighthouses Before the development of clearly defined ports, mariners were guided by fires built on hilltops. Since elevating the fire would improve the visibility, placing the fire on a platform became a practice that led to the development of the lighthouse. In antiquity, the lighthouse functioned more as an entrance marker to ports than as a warning signal for reefs a ...
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Canna, Scotland
Canna (; gd, Canaigh; Eilean Chanaigh; sco, Canna) is the westernmost of the Small Isles archipelago, in the Scotland, Scottish Inner Hebrides. It is linked to the neighbouring island of Sanday, Inner Hebrides, Sanday by a road and sandbanks at low tide. The island is long and wide. The isolated skerry, skerries of Hyskeir and Humla lie south-west of the island. The islands were left to the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) by their previous owners, the Gaelic folklorists and scholars John Lorne Campbell and Margaret Fay Shaw in 1981, and are run as a farm and conservation area. Canna House, one of two big houses on the island (the other being Tighard), contains John Campbell's important archives of Gaelic materials that were donated with the islands to the nation. Since then the NTS has engaged in new initiatives to attract new residents and visitors to Canna. However, these initiatives have enjoyed only limited success (see 'Call for families for Canna' below), and in D ...
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Hyskeir
Hyskeir ( gd, Òigh-sgeir) or Heyskeir is a low-lying rocky islet (a skerry) in the Inner Hebrides, Scotland. The Hyskeir Lighthouse marks the southern entrance to the Minch. Geography Hyskeir lies in the southern entrance to the Minch, 10 kilometres southwest of the island of Canna and 14 kilometres west of Rùm. Garbh Sgeir is a rock that lies next to the islet and the landing place for Hyskeir lies in the channel between the two. Both islands are unoccupied. Òigh-sgeir is composed of hexagonal pitchstone columns. The owner of the island in the 19th and early 20th centuries was Philip Ollas. At that time sheep from Canna were brought to make use of the summer grazing. Etymology Hyskeir is from the Old Norse ''sker'' meaning skerry. ''Òigh-sgeir'' is Gaelic for 'maiden' or 'virgin rock', ''sgeir'' also meaning skerry. The English name 'Maiden Rock' has also been used. Lighthouse Hyskeir Lighthouse was established in 1904. The building marks the southern end of the M ...
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David Alan Stevenson
David Alan Stevenson (21 July 1854 in Edinburgh – 11 April 1938) was a lighthouse engineer who built 26 lighthouses in and around Scotland. Life He was born on 21 July 1854 the son of David Stevenson and his wife, Elizabeth Mackay. His early years were spent at their home at 8 Forth Street in the eastern section of the New Town in Edinburgh. The family later moved to 45 Melville Street. He was part of the famous Stevenson family of lighthouse engineers, including brother Charles Stevenson, uncle Thomas Stevenson, and grandfather Robert Stevenson. His cousin was the author Robert Louis Stevenson. Stevenson was educated at Edinburgh Academy (1865–70) and then studied Engineering at the University of Edinburgh, graduating BSc in 1875. In 1884 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were William Swan, Peter Guthrie Tait, Robert MacKay Smith and George Chrystal.). Stevenson died at his home, "Troqueer", in the Kingsknowe area of Edi ...
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Charles Alexander Stevenson
Charles Alexander Stevenson MICE MIEE FRSE (23 December 1855, – 9 May 1950) was a Scottish lighthouse engineer who built twenty-three lighthouses in and around Scotland. Life He was born at 8 Forth Street in the east part of Edinburgh's New Town The family moved to 20 Royal Terrace on Calton Hill shortly after his birth. Born into the famous Stevenson family of lighthouse engineers, son of David Stevenson and his wife Elizabeth Mackay, brother of David Alan Stevenson, and nephew of Thomas Stevenson, he was educated at Edinburgh Academy 1866 to 1872 then studied mathematics and engineering at the University of Edinburgh where he graduated BSc. He joined the family business of lighthouse design in 1875 remaining unpaid as a family member until 1887 when his uncle, Thomas Stevenson died, after which he became a partner. Between 1887 and 1937 he built 23 lighthouses with his brother, David, and is noted for his experiments with optics. He also improved foghorns and created ...
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Oban
Oban ( ; ' in Scottish Gaelic meaning ''The Little Bay'') is a resort town within the Argyll and Bute council area of Scotland. Despite its small size, it is the largest town between Helensburgh and Fort William. During the tourist season, the town can have a temporary population of up to over 24,000 people. Oban occupies a setting in the Firth of Lorn. The bay forms a near perfect horseshoe, protected by the island of Kerrera; and beyond Kerrera, the Isle of Mull. To the north, is the long low island of Lismore and the mountains of Morvern and Ardgour. Pre-history and archaeology Humans have used the site where Oban now stands since at least Mesolithic times, as evidenced by archaeological remains of cave dwellers found in the town. Just outside the town, stands Dunollie Castle, on a site that overlooks the main entrance to the bay and has been fortified since the Bronze Age. Just to the north of Oban, at Dunstaffnage, excavations in 2010, by Argyll Archaeology, in advanc ...
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Golf Course
A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a tee box, a fairway, the rough and other hazards, and a green with a cylindrical hole in the ground, known as a "cup". The cup holds a flagstick, known as a "pin". A standard round of golf consists of 18 holes, and as such most courses contain 18 distinct holes; however, there are many 9-hole courses and some that have holes with shared fairways or greens. There are also courses with a non-standard number of holes, such as 12 or 14. The vast majority of golf courses have holes of varying length and difficulties that are assigned a standard score, known as par, that a proficient player should be able to achieve; this is usually three, four or five strokes. Par-3 courses consist of holes all of which have a par of three. Short courses have gained in popularity; these consist of mostly par 3 holes, but often have some short par 4 holes. Many older courses ar ...
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Gazetteer For Scotland
The ''Gazetteer for Scotland'' is a gazetteer covering the geography, history and people of Scotland. It was conceived in 1995 by Bruce Gittings of the University of Edinburgh and David Munro of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and contains 25,870 entries as of July 2019. It claims to be "the largest dedicated Scottish resource created for the web". The Gazetteer for Scotland provides a carefully researched and editorially validated resource widely used by students, researchers, tourists and family historians with interests in Scotland. Following on from a strong Scottish tradition of geographical publishing, the ''Gazetteer for Scotland'' is the first comprehensive gazetteer to be produced for the country since Francis Groome's ''Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland'' (1882-6) (the text of which is incorporated into relevant entries). The aim is not to produce a travel guide, of which there are many, but to write a substantive and thoroughly edited description of the count ...
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Television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, entertainment, news, and sports. Television became available in crude experimental forms in the late 1920s, but only after several years of further development was the new technology marketed to consumers. After World War II, an improved form of black-and-white television broadcasting became popular in the United Kingdom and the United States, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses, and institutions. During the 1950s, television was the primary medium for influencing public opinion.Diggs-Brown, Barbara (2011''Strategic Public Relations: Audience Focused Practice''p. 48 In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting was introduced in the U.S. and most other developed countries. The availability of various types of archival st ...
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Northern Lighthouse Board
The Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB) is the general lighthouse authority for Scotland and the Isle of Man. It is a non-departmental public body responsible for marine navigation aids around coastal areas. History The NLB was formed by Act of Parliament in 1786 as the Commissioners of Northern Light Houses, largely at the urging of the lawyer and politician George Dempster ("Honest George"), to oversee the construction and operation of four Scottish lighthouses: Kinnaird Head, North Ronaldsay, Scalpay and Mull of Kintyre, for which they were empowered to borrow up to £1,200. Until then, the only major lighthouse in Scotland was the coal brazier mounted on the Isle of May in the Firth of Forth, together with some smaller lights in the Firths of the Tay and Clyde. None of the major passages around Scotland, which led through dangerous narrows, were marked. The commissioners, whose first president was the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Sir James Hunter-Blair, advertised for buildin ...
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Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth. Edinburgh is Scotland's List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, second-most populous city, after Glasgow, and the List of cities in the United Kingdom, seventh-most populous city in the United Kingdom. Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is the seat of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament and the Courts of Scotland, highest courts in Scotland. The city's Holyrood Palace, Palace of Holyroodhouse is the official residence of the Monarchy of the United Kingdom, British monarchy in Scotland. The city has long been a centre of education, particularly in the fields of medicine, Scots law, Scottish law, literature, philosophy, the sc ...
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Peter Hill (writer)
Peter Hill is the author of ''Stargazing: Memoirs of a Young Lighthouse Keeper'', a book describing his time as a lighthouse-keeper at the Pladda, Ailsa Craig and Hyskeir lighthouses in 1973. The book was published in 2003 by Canongate Books Canongate Books (trading as Canongate) is an independent publishing firm based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is named after the Canongate area of the city. It is most recognised for publishing the Booker Prizewinner ''Life of Pi''. Canongate was n .... References Year of birth missing (living people) British memoirists Living people {{UK-nonfiction-writer-stub ...
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