-and one thing I found out that I didn't know, was about the murder there
Event ID 754881
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
NX64SE 21.00 65943 43202
Lighthouse
(flashing white) [NAT]
OS (GIS) MasterMap, September 2009.
NX64SE 21.01 NX 65942 43189 Residential Block (Cottages)
Visible on vertical air photograph (OS 70/095/006, flown 1970).
(Undated) information in NMRS.
This lighthouse was built at the mouth of Kirkcudbright Bay to close the gap between those at Mull of Galloway and Southerness (NX13SE 2 and NX95SE 1 respectively). The engineer was Thomas Stevenson and it was first lighted on 1 January 1843, being the first light of catadioptric type, having metallic mirrors above and below the lenses. Although this experiment was not totally successful, the light was hailed by Wlliam Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) as being, with Buchan Ness (NK14SW 73.00) and Rhinns of Islay (NR15SE 15), 'undoubtedly the three best revolving lights in the world'.
In 1960, the lighthouse was the scene of a sensational murder when an occasional lightkeeper was shot and robbed; an assistant lightkeeper was sentended to death but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. The light was made automatic in the same year.
R W Munro 1979.
(
https://canmore.org.uk/event/754881)