Qualla: Noss Head Lighthouse https://qualla.com/noss-head-lighthouse en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:25 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/u/noss-head-lighthouse-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Noss Head Lighthouse https://qualla.com/noss-head-lighthouse Noss Head Lighthouse: Introduction https://qualla.com/noss-head-lighthouse/ Photo credit Derek Brown, CC BY-SA 2.0. Look closely at the windows of any modern lighthouse and you'll see something the Victorians figured out here first: the glass panes set on the diagonal, framed in slim metal cross-pieces, designed to let as much light out as physically possible. Noss Head Lighthouse, which first lit its lamp in 1849, was the prototype. Standing on a peninsula at the north-west edge of Sinclair's Bay, three miles northeast of Wick, the 18-meter white tower changed lighthouse design for the next century and a half - and continues to flash, every twenty seconds, white or red depending on which way you approach.

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Image: Derek Brown | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/u/noss-head-lighthouse-wp/gfmu-noss-head-lighthouse-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Noss Head Lighthouse: Why Diagonal https://qualla.com/noss-head-lighthouse/ Photo credit Glen Breaden, CC BY-SA 2.0. The traditional lighthouse lantern was framed with vertical metal struts holding rectangular panes of glass. The problem was the struts themselves: every vertical bar cast a finger of shadow across the beam, interrupting the light at exactly the moments a sailor most needed to se...

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Image: Glen Breaden | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/u/noss-head-lighthouse-wp/gfmu-noss-head-lighthouse-why-diagonal.mp3 0:06 2 full Noss Head Lighthouse: The Tower at Work https://qualla.com/noss-head-lighthouse/ Photo credit Alan Reid, CC BY-SA 2.0. Construction began at the urging of the Northern Lights Commissioners - the formal name for the Northern Lighthouse Board, which still maintains every lighthouse in Scotland and the Isle of Man. The white cylindrical tower rises 18 meters from the headland and supports a single g...

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Image: Alan Reid | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/u/noss-head-lighthouse-wp/gfmu-noss-head-lighthouse-the-tower-at-work.mp3 0:06 3 full Noss Head Lighthouse: Private Owners, Public Light https://qualla.com/noss-head-lighthouse/ Photo credit Doug Lee, CC BY-SA 2.0. Like many British lighthouses, Noss Head was automated and the keepers' houses sold off. A private company bought the adjacent cottages for £200,000, and during their restoration the Northern Lighthouse Board collaborated with the new owners to renovate the whole station as a sin...

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Image: Doug Lee | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/m/u/noss-head-lighthouse-wp/gfmu-noss-head-lighthouse-private-owners-public-light.mp3 0:06 4 full