Leading light
Robert Stevenson is the Stevenson most people haven’t heard of. They have heard of the other Robert Stephenson, early locomotive engineer. They have heard of Robert Louis Stevenson, writer. But before RLS made the Stevenson name famous with Kidnapped and Treasure Island, his grandfather made it great, by building impossible towers using untried methods in malignant seas: including the light on the Bell Rock.
The Inchcape reef is a lump of sandstone rock lying like a slice of cheese turned on its side, 12 miles from Dundee on Scotland’s east coast. The reef lies in one of the busiest sea routes in the world, used by all vessels, from small fishing boats to naval convoys. At the end of the 18th century, the east coast remained almost completely unlit, had few safe harbours, and was
