Bishop Rock, Isles of Scilly

Template: Infobox Island / Maintenance / height missing

Bishop Skirt ( Cornish: Men an Eskob ) is a cliff of lying outside the entrance to the Channel Isles of Scilly. On the rocks belonging to the United Kingdom is the same 49 -meter high lighthouse, which is operated by the British administration beacon Trinity House. The 44 meters in height is above the mean sea level of the Celtic Sea beacon with a strength of 60,000 Candela has a range of approximately 20 nautical miles ( 37 km).

In the Guinness Book of World Records Bishop skirt is recorded as the smallest island in the world built.

History

In 1847, lying on the 4 nautical miles west of the inhabited Isles of Scilly rocks with the construction of the first tower was begun, but this was washed away before the completion of the light house during a storm on February 5, 1850 and on some steel foundation beam again. In the next two years, a 14 m high solid foundation has been built with a diameter of 10 meters with steel connectors from one to two ton granite blocks. Over the next six years, a total of 2,500 tons of granite were installed for the 35 meter high tower. The costs amounted to £ 34,560 (pounds sterling ), which corresponds to approximately £ 2.6 million today, adjusted for inflation; ( according to current exchange rate: € 3.1 million).

On September 1, 1858 Beacon resumed operation. During an inspection in 1881, serious damage to the structure of the foundation were found. Since the height of the fire should be increased to 12 meters, then there was a reinforcement of the base by bolts anchored with heavy granite blocks for the protection of the tower in front of the surf were also used for the additional envelope of the tower base. The work further 3,200 tonnes were installed, which increased the total weight of the building to 5,700 tons. The work was finished in October 1887 cost £ 66,000 (equivalent to £ 5.3 million today and the current exchange rate € 6.4 million).

The conversion of the lighting of kerosene to electrical energy was 1973. The helipad at the top was built in 1976. Bishop skirt was the last manned lighthouse of South West England. After installing a remote monitoring of the lighthouse keeper left on 21 December 1992 the tower.

On-board facilities

In addition to the every 15 seconds flashing beacon is located on Bishop rock Britain's radar beacon no. 1st of June 2007, in addition with poor visibility a foghorn the letter N sent every 90 seconds as a sound character in Morse code.

Accidents

On May 7, 1875, in the vicinity of the Rock one of the worst maritime disasters in British history occurred. The sailing steamer Schiller was due to a navigational error in the Retarrier Ledges due. There were 335 deaths; only 37 people were able to save themselves.