The eyes of Scotland will be on Arbroath next month with a BBC documentary set to air and major events planned to mark the bicentenary of the Bell Rock lighthouse.
February 1 marks the 200th anniversary of the lighting of the beacon, and the sky above the town will be illuminated by a firework display with 2000 people expected to attend.
The Princess Royal and author Bella Bathurst will lead the celebrations in Edinburgh while BBC2 Scotland will broadcast ia programme on the lighthouse at 9pm.
The display at Inchcape Park next to the Signal Tower Museum will flare into life with a special, giant firework in the shape of thelighthouse, accompanied by music from the days when the Bell Rock was new.
The Earl of Southesk, patron of the Year of the Light, will start the countdown to the fireworks display at 7.30pm and the event will also feature a funfair and stalls.
Year of the Light steering committee chairman Harry Simpson said, “If it’s a clear night, the Year of the Light’s spectacular musical fireworks display will be visible at the Bell Rock, where, on February 1, 1811, the first beam of light shone from the top of the lighthouse constructed by Robert Stevenson and his highly-skilled team.”
That evening Bella, author of bestseller The Lighthouse Stevensons, will give a public talk at the Hub, Castlehill, Edinburgh.Stevensons’ lessonsPrincess Anne, as patron of the Northern Lighthouse Board, will hold a reception at Holyrood House on the evening of Thursday, February 3.
She will open a conference The Bell Rock Lighthouse, The Stevensons, And Emerging Issues In Aids To Navigation at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, George Street, the following day.
These events are part of a wider programme of celebrations which includes the exhibition Shining Lights at the National Museum of Scotland which runs until April 3, as well as the Year of the Light.
Bella’s lecture will look not only at the story of the building of the Bell Rock but at the role lighthouses play in navigation today and our changing relationship with the sea.
She said, “We have layered our seabed with oil rigs, gas exploration platforms and telecoms cables, and we’re at a point of huge expansion of tidal and wave energy devices.
“It’s important to recognise that the Stevensons still have something to teach us.”‘Extreme construction’She added, “Their lighthouses are templates for extreme construction.
“They’re built in the worst places, with the greatest exposure, for the longest time. And the lessons the Stevensons learned do not date.
“They can still tell the inquiring engineer what they wanted to know about every corner of the British coastline, from the tip of Shetland to the Lizard Point.”
Sir Andrew Cubie, chairman of the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses, said the conference will examine the construction of this extraordinary building and will also deliberate on its place in today’s world.
These events have been organised by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Northern Lighthouse Board and are supported by Inchcape Shipping Services (ISS), which owes its name to the notorious reef off Arbroath.
Lord Wilson of Tillyorn, president of the RSE, said the bicentenary of the Bell Rock lighthouse is a chance to reflect not only on the achievements of its builders but on the more recent past of lighthouses and their future.
The oldest standing rock lighthouse in the world, the Bell Rock is one of the most exceptional feats of engineering in Scottish history.