Northern lights : the age of Scottish lighthouses

The Bell Rock Lighthouse, the world's oldest rock lighthouse situated off the coast of the county of Angus, was built by the famous Stevenson engineers, and has its 200th anniversary on 11 February 2011.

Northern Lights celebrates that occasion. This fully illustrated book tells the story of Scotland's lighthouses through objects, charts and photographs, using National Museums Scotland's pre-eminent collection of sea-marking amterial from the Northern Lighthouse Board, and also items from the Stevenson family.

For reasons explained in the book, historic items relating to the building of the earlier Eddystone Lighthouse, located in the English Channel, are also held by the museum, and John Smeaton's stone-built construction there must be seen as the inspiration for Robert Stevenson's structure.