Stroma Lighthouse

Light Established 1896 Engineer David & Charles Stevenson Builder Position Latitude 58° 41.8' N Longitude 03° 07.0' W Character Flashing (2) White every 20 Secs Nominal Range 26 miles Structure White tower, 23 metres high. History In 1896, Stroma was established as a major light. Orginally it was a Trotter-Lindberg light which used petroleum spirit or lythene, this was soon found to be unsuitable at this location and was replaced by a paraffin lamp. In 1972, Stroma was converted to electric operation, using a sealed beam optic mounted on a gearless revolving pedestal; at the same time, a landing pad was built near the station, and the relief or changeover of Keepers was effected by helicopter. Work commenced in April 1994 to convert the station to automatic operation, this was complete in March 1997. The former sealed beam lamp array optic was removed and replaced by the ex Sule Skerry 4th order lens system. This rotates using a gearless pedestal and the light source is a 250 watt metal Halide lamp. The air driven fog signal has been removed and replaced by an electric emitter type located on the lighthouse balcony. When manned, power for the station was obtained from constant running generators. In the automatic mode, power is provided from batteries 'cycle' charged at regular intervals.