UK’s loneliest lighthouse on dangerous island where visitors are ‘banned’ is finally getting a makeover after 131 years

THE UK’s loneliest lighthouse is finally getting a makeover after 131 years. Visitors are banned from visiting the Sule Skerry Lighthouse, 40 miles to the west of Orkney, which is showing “considerable signs of weathering”. The UK’s lonliest lighthouse is finally getting a makeover after 131 years Credit: Alamy Sule Skerry Lighthouse lies 40 miles to the west of Orkney Credit: Alamy This is because the lighthouse remains unstaffed with access restricted due to safety hazards and ongoing maintenance over the years. A planning application for repairs to the 88-foot high structure has now been lodged with Orkney Islands Council (OIC). Sign up for the Money newsletter Thank you! The Northern Lighthouse Board is seeking permission to completely strip out the interior and repair parts of the building’s exterior. Described as the “most isolated lighthouse in the British Isles”, the planning documents say the structure, which has a huge lantern 16 feet in diameter, is in dire need of works. “The exterior of the lighthouse has been repainted and repaired many times over the years,” the report says. “At present, it shows considerable signs of weathering, including rust stains, cracking, spalling of ironwork etc.” Pipes to handle rain water are in a poor state, as is the “seriously degraded” railings around the cleaning path of the upper-level of the tower. Various works are being proposed in the planning application to OIC. Most read in Money This includes “a complete internal strip out,” structural repairs to cracks, re-waterproofing. The plans include new batteries, engine, fuel and water systems, and replacing a ladder on the exterior of the lighthouse. Sule Skerry Lighthouse is 35 miles north of the Scottish mainland and is listed as a building of Architectural/Historical interest. “Work cannot be done during the worst of the bad weather, and must be timed to respect the bird nesting season in this ecologically important site,” adds the planning report. The works are planned to be completed over at least two years. It lies in the track of vessels passing through the Pentland Firth on passage to or from the Iceland seas. Plans for a lighthouse on Sule Skerry were drawn up in 1891, designed by David and Charles Stevenson of the famous Stevenson family that included writer Robert Louis. “With a surface area of 35 acres and rising in the centre to 45 feet above water, it is almost out of sight of all land. About four miles away rises the stack, 140 feet high, and 15 miles farther south is the sunken Nun Rock, 13 feet below water,” say the NLB. “The island is the home of puffins and seals and the ground is covered with them. It also has a great variety of fauna and flora. “Sule Skerry had the distinction, acknowledged by the Guinness Book of Records of being the most remote manned lighthouse in Scotland (in fact in Britain).” They added the station was attacked during the Second World War in 1942, when an enemy bomb dropped three bombs on the island about sixty yards north of the lighthouse. Fortunately, no one was injured and the damage was minimal and a floating mine drifted ashore and exploded two years later. Comment now