guard-room for the use and convenience of pilots
and fishermen.

Soon after the establishment of the Board of Commissioners, repeated
applications were made for the erection of new lighthouses, in order
to avert the misfortunes which occurred every year, especially on the
low shores of the northern isles of Orkney. In the year 1789 a
lighthouse had been completed at North Ronaldsay, but the experience
of twelve years had proved that this was not calculated to prevent the
numerous wrecks on the islands of Sanday and Stronsay. In 1796, when
the engineer was on his annual visit, he was struck at seeing the
wreck of three homeward-bound ships upon the island of Sanday, though
situate only about eight miles southward of the lighthouse of North
Ronaldsay. In the three following years no fewer than eight ships were
wrecked upon the same fatal island. It was therefore resolved, in
1801, that a stone-tower or beacon should be erected upon the Start
Point, which forms the eastern extremity of the low shores of the
Island of Sanday; the building to be constructed in such a manner that
it might, if necessary, be converted into a lighthouse.

In the year 1802, Mr. Stevenson, the engineer of the Northern
Lighthouses, sailed on his annual voyage of inspection, taking with
him a foreman and sixteen artificers to commence the works at Start
Point. The vessel reached Orkney by the 20th April, and even at this
advanced part of the season the islands were covered to the depth of
six inches with snow. This, at any time, is rather uncommon in Orkney;
but such had been the severity of this season in the northern regions,
that a flock of wild swans, which in severe winters visit these
islands, were still seen in considerable numbers upon the fresh-water
lakes of Sanday. Those large birds are supposed to migrate from
Iceland, but are rarely seen in Orkney later than the month of March;
so that their appearance in the latter end of April was regarded as a
mark of a very severe and long-continued winter in the higher
latitudes.

There being no workable sand-stone on Sanday island, a quarry was
opened on the contiguous island of Eda, where it occurred of a
tolerably good quality. In order to render the building substantially
water-tight, it had been originally intended to make it wholly of
hewn-stone built in regular courses; but the quarry of Eda being about
fourteen miles distant from the works, the stones had to be conveyed
by sea through