While on holiday in Scotland a couple weeks ago, May 2018, I managed to photograph quite a few lighthouses for my Stevenson Lighthouse Category. The best one for location, was Neist Point Lighthouse on the Isle of Skye, on the most westerly tip of Skye near the township of Glendale. I had read that you could climb down steps to the lighthouse, that they were steep, but there was a handrail. We arrived to find it was very busy, in fact everywhere this year was busy……I think everyone has found out how wonderful Scotland is for a holiday……anyway, we parked the car and headed in the direction of the lighthouse. We climbed down to the start of the steps, down a few steps and then….that was it, far too steep for me, far too many people trying to get up and down at the same time. If we had been on our own, or if there had only been a few people I would have gone down, so I decided we would turn back and climb the hill side of the cliffs and get some shots that way. It was very steep and muddy, but worth it for the views and thank goodness it was one of the non stormy days we had.
The lighthouse was designed by David Alan Stevenson at cost of £4350.00 and was first lit on 1 November 1909, and automated in 1990, when the lighthouse keepers were withdrawn. The keeper’s cottages that surround the tower are now privately owned, for a few years were used as holiday lets, but recently they don’t seem to have been used, and the whole place has an air of abandonment.
Neist Point (pronounced ‘Neest’) is renowned for its rock formations, which are closely akin to those at the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland. It is said that the causeway extends under the sea from Northern Ireland to the Isle of Skye.
