Engineers of the Northern Lighthouse Board have found a bottle with a 132-year-old message deep inside the walls of a lighthouse near Cairnryan in south-west Scotland.
The bottle was discovered inside the Corsewall Lighthouse located at the most northerly point of the Rhins of Galloway, marking the entrance to Loch Ryan with its ferry terminals at Cairnryan for P&O linking Larne and Stena Line with Belfast.
The "once in a lifetime" find by the engineers of the letter dated September 1892 is understood to be the first ever message in a bottle discovered at a Scottish lighthouse which is operated by the Northern Lighthouse Board. The NLB is the General Lighthouse Authority (GLA) responsible for the waters surrounding Scotland and the Isle of Man.
Contained inside the 8” (20 cm) bottle was the handwritten letter using quill and ink, which revealed the names of three engineers who installed a new type of light in the 100-foot (30 m) Corsewall Lighthouse tower.
In addition, the letter has the names of the lighthouse's then-three keepers.
During an inspection of the lighthouse, the bottle was found by Ross Russell, a NLB mechanical engineer, having spotted it after removing panels in a cupboard, but it was well out of arm's reach.
The team, including Morgan Dennison and Neil Armstrong, were able to retrieve it using a contraption made from a rope and a broom handle.
Ross Russell said: The note was just sensational; I was just in utter amazement. Being the first person to touch the bottle after 132 years was just mind-blowing. It’s a once in a lifetime find.”.
But they waited until the retained lighthousekeeper, Barry Miller, arrived before they opened it. "My goodness, am I grateful for them doing that?" he said.
BBC News more about this unique discovery.
Corsewall Lighthouse, Afloat Highlights is also a hotel using the former lightkeepers accommodation. The hotel is located close to the former ferryport of Stranraer on Loch Ryan, which neighbours Cairnryan.
