*** Welcome to piglix ***

Bishop Rock

Bishop Rock Lighthouse
Bishop Rock Lighthouse - Isles of Scilly.jpg
Bishop Rock Lighthouse (2005)
Bishop Rock, Isles of Scilly is located in Isles of Scilly
Bishop Rock, Isles of Scilly
Isles of Scilly
Location Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, United Kingdom
Coordinates 49°52′22.52″N 06°26′44.49″W / 49.8729222°N 6.4456917°W / 49.8729222; -6.4456917Coordinates: 49°52′22.52″N 06°26′44.49″W / 49.8729222°N 6.4456917°W / 49.8729222; -6.4456917
Year first constructed 1858
Year first lit 1887 (rebuilt)
Automated 1992
Construction granite tower
Tower shape tapered cylindrical tower with lantern and helipad on the top
Markings / pattern unpainted tower, white lantern
Height 51 metres (167 ft)
Focal height 44 metres (144 ft)
Current lens Hyper Radial 1330 mm Rotating
Intensity 600,000 Candela
Range 24 nautical miles (44 km; 28 mi)
Characteristic Fl (2) W15s.
Admiralty number A0002
NGA number 0004
ARLHS number ENG 010
Managing agent Trinity House

The Bishop Rock (Cornish: Men Epskop) is a very small islet in the Atlantic Ocean known for its lighthouse. It is in the westernmost part of the Isles of Scilly, an archipelago 45 km (28 mi) off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain. The Guinness Book of Records lists it as the world's smallest island with a building on it.

The original iron lighthouse was begun in 1847 but was washed away before it could be completed. The present building was completed in 1858 and was first lit on September 1, in the same year. Prior to the installation of the helipad, visitors to the lighthouse would rappel from the top (with winches installed at the lamp level and at the base below) to boats waiting away from the lighthouse.

Bishop Rock is also at the eastern end of the North Atlantic shipping route used by ocean liners in the first half of the 20th century; the western end being the entrance to Lower New York Bay. This was the route that ocean liners took when competing for the Transatlantic speed record, known as the Blue Riband.

In the late 13th century, when the Isles of Scilly were under the jurisdiction of John de Allet and his wife Isabella, anyone convicted of felony ″ought to be taken to a certain rock in the sea, with two barley loaves and a pitcher of water and left until the sea swallowed him up″. The rock was recorded as Maen Escop in 1284 and Maenenescop in 1302. In Welsh, Maen Esgob means Bishop Rock. The outer rocks to the west of St Agnes used to be known as the Bishop and Clerk, but exactly how they acquired their names is not known for certain. One explanation is that when a fleet of merchantmen out of Spain were wrecked 200 years ago, only Miles Bishop and John and Henry Clerk survived. Another possible explanation is that the shape of the rock is similar to a bishop's mitre.


...
Wikipedia

...