Orkney's 11 Lighthouses: Visit, Stay & Photograph Them

Eleven lighthouses ring Orkney. The oldest was lit in 1789 by Thomas Smith, the very first engineer the Northern Lighthouse Board ever employed; the youngest came on station in 1925 under Smith's great-grandson-in-law, David A. Stevenson. Between them, three generations of Stevensons — including the family that gave the world Robert Louis Stevenson — wrote two centuries of engineering history onto Orkney's wave-battered headlands. This is the guide to who built what, how to see them today, and which deserve a place in your itinerary.

Why Orkney Has More Stevenson Lighthouses Than Any Other UK Archipelago

Orkney sits at the cross-roads of the Atlantic and the North Sea. The Pentland Firth — the narrow strait between Orkney and the Scottish mainland — runs tide-races up to 16 knots, faster than any other body of water around the British Isles. The North Shoal off Westray, the skerries off Stronsay, the unmarked reefs around Hoy: every one of them stripped ships before there were lights.

The Northern Lighthouse Board was created by Act of Parliament in 1786 specifically to fix this. It hired one man — Thomas Smith — and gave him four sites to light. North Ronaldsay was one of them. By 1789, the old beacon on North Ronaldsay's northern tip was burning, and Orkney had its first lighthouse. Smith's stepson, a young engineer called Robert Stevenson, helped him build it. Within a decade, Robert had taken over the family business and the dynasty began: Robert (lit Start Point 1806), his sons Alan (Hoy Sound and the new North Ronaldsay tower, 1851 and 1854), David and Thomas (Cantick Head 1858, Auskerry 1866), then grandsons David A. and Charles (Sule Skerry 1895, Noup Head 1898), and finally great-grandson David A. on his own (Copinsay 1915, Brough of Birsay 1925).

That's why Orkney's lighthouse map reads like a Stevenson family tree. Seven generations of one Edinburgh engineering household, and most of them did their toughest work here.

Five Lighthouses That Earn the Detour

If you have a week in Orkney, these are the lighthouses worth building a half-day around. Each is reachable to the average visitor and each has a story that justifies the journey:

North Ronaldsay: Two Lighthouses, One Island, the Tallest in Britain

North Ronaldsay is the outlier — geographically the most northerly of the inhabited isles, and uniquely it has two lighthouses on the same headland. The older is the Old Beacon, lit in 1789 by Thomas Smith with the assistance of his young stepson Robert Stevenson and the English lighting expert Ezekiel Walker. It was decommissioned in 1809 once a better light was built, but the stone tower still stands — Orkney's first lighthouse, kept as a sea-mark and grade-A listed.

The newer tower, built in 1854 by Alan Stevenson, is the headline act: at 42 metres (139 ft), it is the tallest land-based lighthouse in Britain. Red-brick rather than the usual whitewashed stone. Automated in 1998 — one of the last NLB lights to lose its keeper. There's a small visitor centre at the base (open seasonally), the famous seaweed-eating native sheep wander the foreshore, and the light is reachable by Loganair flight from Kirkwall (about 20 minutes) or the Orkney Ferries vessel via Sanday and Eday (around two and a half hours).

The Stevenson Method: How These Towers Actually Stay Up

Building lighthouses on Orkney's exposed coasts demanded a craft that didn't exist before the family invented it. Three things distinguish a Stevenson Orkney light:

• The tapered cylinder. Towers are wider at the base than at the lantern — that flare absorbs wave impact and resists the overturning moment of a 100 mph gust. Pentland Skerries (1794) was the first significant cylindrical light in northern Europe.
• Interlocked masonry. Each course of granite blocks dovetails into the course above and below it, so the tower behaves as a single monolith under wave loading. Robert Stevenson borrowed the principle from John Smeaton's Eddystone Light (1759) and refined it.
• The Fresnel lens. From the 1830s onwards the Stevensons championed Augustin-Jean Fresnel's revolutionary glass-prism lens system — concentric rings of precisely cut prisms that bend a light source into a tight parallel beam visible up to 25 nautical miles offshore. Many of Orkney's lights still hold their original 19th-century Fresnel lenses; Stromness Museum has one on display.

The transport problem was as hard as the engineering. Granite for Sule Skerry had to be ferried 40 miles offshore by sail to a tide-swept skerry with no harbour; the masons lived in canvas barracks for the 1894 building season. The fact that any of these towers got built is, on its own terms, more remarkable than the fact that they still operate.

Cantick Head: Where You Can Actually Stay in a Lighthouse Keeper's Cottage

Most Orkney lights remain locked to visitors — they're operational aids to navigation, after all, monitored remotely from the NLB's Edinburgh control room. Cantick Head is the exception that proves the rule. Built by David and Thomas Stevenson in 1858 on the headland of South Walls (a peninsula of Hoy), it guards the southern approach to Scapa Flow from the Pentland Firth — historically critical, and during both World Wars the busiest stretch of water in British naval history. Its 22-metre whitewashed tower was automated in 1991, and the keepers and their families moved out for the last time.

The compound's three former keepers' cottages were converted into self-catering lets and they remain among the most atmospheric places to sleep in Scotland: a private peninsula, a working lighthouse next door, and views of the Pentland tide-rip from the kitchen window. Pair a stay with a deep-dive into the geography in our complete Scapa Flow guide — Cantick Head's foghorn was added in 1913 precisely because the Grand Fleet was about to base itself two miles away.

Lighthouses at War: The Hoxa Head, Scapa Flow and the Lights That Went Dark

Orkney's lights spent the two World Wars in service of the Royal Navy. Scapa Flow was the British Grand Fleet's principal anchorage from 1914 and again from 1939, and the lights around its entrances — Cantick Head, the Pentland Skerries, the small Hoxa Head sector light — became part of the defensive scheme. Several were dimmed or extinguished for the duration; the Hoxa light was added precisely to mark the controlled entrance through the boom defences.

The loss of HMS Hampshire on 5 June 1916, struck by a mine off Marwick Head with Field Marshal Lord Kitchener aboard, is the most-told story but not the most representative — Hampshire was a victim of a mine, not the absence of a light. Of more interest to the lighthouse story is the systematic German bombing of NLB shore stations in 1940, which forced the Auskerry crew to evacuate and changed the way the Board organised reliefs for the rest of the war. The full sequence of Orkney's wartime years is best read alongside our guide to Orkney's WWII sites and the Italian Chapel, which covers the Hoxa Head batteries, Lyness, and the Churchill Barriers in detail.

The End of the Keeper: How and When the Lights Went Solo

The era of the resident keeper ended slowly. Auskerry was automated in 1961, Start Point in 1962, Noup Head in 1964, Hoy Sound Low in 1966 — then a long pause. Sule Skerry, the most remote manned light in Britain since 1895, finally lost its three keepers in December 1982. Cantick Head followed in 1991, Copinsay the same year, North Ronaldsay in 1998. Brough of Birsay was converted to solar power in 2002 — the last of the Orkney lights to leave the old paraffin-and-mantle era.

Today every Orkney light is monitored from the NLB's control room in Edinburgh. LED arrays have largely replaced the original Fresnel lens systems (a few historic lenses remain, kept as backups); solar panels and battery banks handle the power. The towers still flash their inherited signatures — Noup Head every 30 seconds, North Ronaldsay every 10 — but no one stands in the lantern room any more. The wider story of the islands' marine ecosystem, which these lights protected and which still depends on them, sits alongside this in our piece on Orkney's seals, whales, dolphins and orcas.

Visiting Orkney's Lighthouses: A Practical Plan

Operational lighthouses are not open buildings. You won't get inside the lantern room, and the NLB politely discourages climbing on the compound walls. That said, almost all of Orkney's lights are spectacular from the outside, and several have proper visitor facilities or accommodation:

• Drive-up or walk-up: Brough of Birsay (low tide only — check the causeway times), Cantick Head, Noup Head (45-minute clifftop walk from the Westray airstrip), Hoy Sound High and Low on Graemsay.
• By inter-island ferry: Start Point on Sanday (note: the lighthouse is on a tidal causeway, accessible roughly four hours either side of low water); North Ronaldsay's two towers; Auskerry (charter boat only, no scheduled service).
• From a boat trip: Copinsay and the Pentland Skerries are best seen from a wildlife or charter boat; Sule Skerry is effectively inaccessible without a private yacht and a calm summer week. Clifftop walks at Noup Head, Marwick Head and Yesnaby give the best land-based vantage points for the smaller offshore lights.
• Stay in one: Cantick Head's keepers' cottages on South Walls are the most accessible lighthouse stay; available on a self-catering basis through specialist holiday-let agencies.
• Museum exhibits: Stromness Museum (a Stevenson Fresnel lens on display), Scapa Flow Museum at Lyness (the wartime story), and the seasonal North Ronaldsay visitor centre.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many lighthouses are there in Orkney?

The Northern Lighthouse Board operates eleven major navigational lights around Orkney: Pentland Skerries (1794), Start Point (1806), the pair of Hoy Sound lights on Graemsay (1851), North Ronaldsay (1854), Cantick Head (1858), Auskerry (1866), Sule Skerry (1895, 40 miles offshore), Noup Head (1898), Copinsay (1915), and Brough of Birsay (1925). The Old Beacon on North Ronaldsay (1789) — Orkney's first lighthouse — is decommissioned but still standing as a sea-mark. Add minor harbour lights and you reach around fifteen in total.

What is the tallest lighthouse in Orkney?

North Ronaldsay's 1854 tower stands 42 metres (139 ft) — the tallest land-based lighthouse in the British Isles. Built by Alan Stevenson, distinctive for its red-brick construction (most NLB towers are whitewashed stone). It was the last Orkney lighthouse to be automated, in 1998.

Who built Orkney's lighthouses?

Thomas Smith, the first engineer to the Northern Lighthouse Board, built the original North Ronaldsay beacon in 1789 — Orkney's first lighthouse — with help from his stepson Robert Stevenson. Robert went on to build Start Point in 1806. His descendants — Alan, David, Thomas, and grandsons David A. and Charles Stevenson — designed and oversaw the construction of every other major Orkney lighthouse between 1851 and 1925. Three generations of one Edinburgh engineering family wrote almost the entire lighthouse history of the archipelago.

Can you stay in a lighthouse in Orkney?

Yes. The former keepers' cottages at Cantick Head on South Walls (Hoy) operate as self-catering holiday lets — the most accessible lighthouse stay in Orkney, with a working light next door and direct views of the Pentland Firth. Other lights are not open for accommodation, though Stromness and Kirkwall have lighthouse-themed hotels and B&Bs nearby.

Which Orkney lighthouse is the most remote?

Sule Skerry, built in 1895 by David A. and Charles Stevenson on a 35-acre rocky skerry 40 miles west of Orkney Mainland. From its opening until automation in December 1982, the Guinness Book of Records recognised it as the most remote manned lighthouse in Great Britain. Three keepers worked one-month rotations there. Today it is effectively unreachable to visitors and home only to a colony of around 60,000 storm petrels.

Why does Start Point lighthouse have black and white stripes?

Robert Stevenson painted the vertical stripes onto the Start Point tower in 1806 as a daymark — a visual identifier for mariners approaching in daylight, when the light itself is invisible. Most British lighthouses are whitewashed precisely so they stand out against sea and sky; Start Point goes a step further, using high-contrast stripes that read instantly from miles offshore. It remains unique in Scotland.

Are Orkney's lighthouses still operational?

Yes. All eleven NLB Orkney lights are still operational aids to navigation — automated, monitored remotely from Edinburgh, and powered by a mix of solar arrays and battery banks. Most have switched from their original 19th-century Fresnel lens systems to modern LED beacons, though several historic lenses remain in service or on museum display. The lights still flash their inherited signatures every night, just without the keeper in the lantern room.

To plan a lighthouse trip that takes in Westray, Sanday, Graemsay and a Hoy cottage stay without losing days to ferries, pick accommodation on Mainland Orkney close to Stromness or Kirkwall — the two ports from which every island ferry and inter-island flight departs.