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Noss Head Lighthouse
The Noss Head Lighthouse is an active 19th-century lighthouse near Wick in Caithness in the Highland council area of Scotland. It is located at the end of Noss Head, a peninsula on the north-west coast of Caithness that overlooks Sinclairs Bay, three miles north-east of Wick. It is notable as being the first lighthouse that was built with a diagonally-paned lantern room. History The need for the lighthouse was promoted by the Northern Lights Commissioners. The light first entered service in 1849, and consists of an cylindrical tower, which is painted white. It supports a single gallery and a lantern with a black cupola. There are 76 steps to the top of the tower. Adjacent to the tower are a pair of keeper's cottages and subsidiary buildings, bounded by a walled compound. The lighthouse was built by Mr. Arnot of Inverness, with the construction being overseen by the notable lighthouse engineer Alan Stevenson (uncle of Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson), who for the first ...
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Wick, Caithness
Wick ( gd, Inbhir Ùige (IPA: �inivɪɾʲˈuːkʲə, sco, Week) is a town and royal burgh in Caithness, in the far north of Scotland. The town straddles the River Wick and extends along both sides of Wick Bay. "Wick Locality" had a population of 6,954 at the time of the 2011 census, a decrease of 3.8% from 2001. Pulteneytown, which was developed on the south side of the river by the British Fisheries Society during the 19th century, was officially merged into the burgh in 1902. Elzy was described as on the coast a couple of miles east of Wick in 1836. The town is on the main road (the A99– A9 road) linking John o' Groats with southern Britain. The Far North railway line links Wick railway station with southern Scotland and with Thurso, the other burgh of Caithness. Wick Airport is on Wick's northern outskirts. The airport has two usable runways. A third is derelict. The main offices of '' The John O'Groat Journal'' and ''The Caithness Courier'' are located in Wick, a ...
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Fresnel
Augustin-Jean Fresnel (10 May 1788 – 14 July 1827) was a French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave theory of light, excluding any remnant of Newton's corpuscular theory, from the late 1830s until the end of the 19th century. He is perhaps better known for inventing the catadioptric (reflective/refractive) Fresnel lens and for pioneering the use of "stepped" lenses to extend the visibility of lighthouses, saving countless lives at sea. The simpler dioptric (purely refractive) stepped lens, first proposed by Count Buffon and independently reinvented by Fresnel, is used in screen magnifiers and in condenser lenses for overhead projectors. By expressing Huygens's principle of secondary waves and Young's principle of interference in quantitative terms, and supposing that simple colors consist of sinusoidal waves, Fresnel gave the first satisfactory explanation of diffraction by straight edges, includi ...
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Lighthouses Completed In 1849
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals, reefs, rocks, and safe entries to harbors; they also assist in aerial navigation. Once widely used, the number of operational lighthouses has declined due to the expense of maintenance and has become uneconomical since the advent of much cheaper, more sophisticated and effective electronic navigational systems. History Ancient lighthouses Before the development of clearly defined ports, mariners were guided by fires built on hilltops. Since elevating the fire would improve the visibility, placing the fire on a platform became a practice that led to the development of the lighthouse. In antiquity, the lighthouse functioned more as an entrance marker to ports than as a warning signal for reefs and ...
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Historic Environment Scotland
Historic Environment Scotland (HES) ( gd, Àrainneachd Eachdraidheil Alba) is an executive non-departmental public body responsible for investigating, caring for and promoting Scotland's historic environment. HES was formed in 2015 from the merger of government agency Historic Scotland with the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS). Among other duties, Historic Environment Scotland maintains more than 300 properties of national importance including Edinburgh Castle, Skara Brae and Fort George. History The responsibilities of HES were formerly split between Historic Scotland, a government agency responsible for properties of national importance, and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), which collected and managed records about Scotland's historic environment. Under the terms of a Bill of the Scottish Parliament published on 3 March 2014, the pair were dissolved and their functions transferr ...
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List Of Northern Lighthouse Board Lighthouses
This is a list of the currently operational lighthouses of the Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB). The list is divided by geographical location, and then by whether the lighthouses are classed by the NLB as a 'major lighthouse' or a 'minor light'. Former NLB lighthouses now disposed of are not included in the list. Scotland (except principal island groups) Major lighthouses Minor lights * Ardtornish * Bass Rock * Cailleach Head * Cairnbulg Briggs * Corran Narrows North East * Corran Point * Craigton Point * Dunollie * Elie Ness * Hestan Island * Holy Island (Inner) * Lady Isle * Little Ross * Little Ross Beacon * Loch Eriboll * Loch Ryan * Longman Point * Oban NLB Pier * Sandaig * Sgeir Bhuidhe * Sula Sgeir * Turnberry The Hebrides Major lighthouses * Barra Head * Butt of Lewis * Dubh Artach * Eilean Glas * Flannan Islands * * Hyskeir * Lismore * Monach * Neist Point * * Rinns of Islay * * Ruvaal * Scarinish * Skerryvore * Tiumpan Head * Ushenish Min ...
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List Of Lighthouses In Scotland
This is a list of lighthouses in Scotland. The Northern Lighthouse Board, from which much of the information is derived, are responsible for most lighthouses in Scotland but have handed over responsibility in the major estuaries to the port authorities. Many of the more minor lights are not shown. A lighthouse that is no longer operating is indicated by the date of closure in the ''operated by'' column. Where two dates are shown, the lighthouse has been rebuilt. Nearly all the lighthouses in this list were designed by and most were built by four generations of one family, including Thomas Smith, who was both the stepfather and father-in-law of Robert Stevenson. Robert's sons and grandsons not only built most of the lights, often under the most appalling of conditions, but pioneered many of the improvements in lighting and signalling that cut down the enormous loss of life in shipping around the coasts of Scotland. The table may be sorted by any column by clicking on the headi ...
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Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as both Irish and Manx, developed out of Old Irish. It became a distinct spoken language sometime in the 13th century in the Middle Irish period, although a common literary language was shared by the Gaels of both Ireland and Scotland until well into the 17th century. Most of modern Scotland was once Gaelic-speaking, as evidenced especially by Gaelic-language place names. In the 2011 census of Scotland, 57,375 people (1.1% of the Scottish population aged over 3 years old) reported being able to speak Gaelic, 1,275 fewer than in 2001. The highest percentages of Gaelic speakers were in the Outer Hebrides. Nevertheless, there is a language revival, and the number of speakers of the language under age 20 did not decrease between the 2001 ...
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English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic ( Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in ...
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List Of Category A Listed Buildings In Highland
This is a list of Category A listed buildings in the Highland council area of northern Scotland. In Scotland, the term listed building refers to a building or other structure officially designated as being of "special architectural or historic interest". Category A structures are those considered to be "buildings of national or international importance, either architectural or historic, or fine little-altered examples of some particular period, style or building type." Listing was begun by a provision in the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1947, and the current legislative basis for listing is the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997. The authority for listing rests with Historic Scotland, an executive agency of the Scottish Government, which inherited this role from the Scottish Development Department in 1991. Once listed, severe restrictions are imposed on the modifications allowed to a building's structure or its fittings. Listed ...
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National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a combat support agency within the United States Department of Defense whose primary mission is collecting, analyzing, and distributing geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) in support of national security. Initially known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) from 1996 to 2003, it is a member of the United States Intelligence Community. NGA headquarters, also known as NGA Campus East or NCE, is located at Fort Belvoir North Area in Springfield, Virginia. The agency also operates major facilities in the St. Louis, Missouri area (referred to as NGA Campus West or NCW), as well as support and liaison offices worldwide. The NGA headquarters, at , is the third-largest government building in the Washington metropolitan area after The Pentagon and the Ronald Reagan Building. In addition to using GEOINT for U.S. military and intelligence efforts, NGA provides assistance during natural and man-made disasters, aids in se ...
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Light Characteristic
A light characteristic is all of the properties that make a particular navigational light identifiable. Graphical and textual descriptions of navigational light sequences and colours are displayed on nautical charts and in Light Lists with the chart symbol for a lighthouse, lightvessel, buoy or sea mark with a light on it. Different lights use different colours, frequencies and light patterns, so mariners can identify which light they are seeing. Abbreviations While light characteristics can be described in prose, e.g. "Flashing white every three seconds", lists of lights and navigation chart annotations use abbreviations. The abbreviation notation is slightly different from one light list to another, with dots added or removed, but it usually follows a pattern similar to the following (see the chart to the right for examples). * An abbreviation of the type of light, e.g. "Fl." for flashing, "F." for fixed. * The color of the light, e.g. "W" for white, "G" for green, "R" for re ...
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Clan Sinclair Trust
The Clan Sinclair Trust is a Scottish trust which was formed with the main objective of rescuing and preserving Castle Sinclair Girnigoe and of developing a visitor centre and library. Over the years, the Trust has raised substantial funds which have been spent on the castle including major works to stabilise the remaining building and on conducting major archaeological research which has resulted in highly important historical discoveries. The Patron is Prince Charles, Duke of Rothesay. On 8 September 2022, the day that Queen Elizabeth II died, Prince Charles became King Charles III and remains Patron. The Chief Executive of the Clan Sinclair Trust is Sir Malcolm Sinclair, 20th Earl of Caithness and John Sinclair, 3rd Viscount Thurso and Euan Sinclair are trustees. The Trust's 2006 Financial Statement reported that in April of that year "the Trust acquired Noss Head Estates Limited, a privately owned company" with a generous donation from Niven Sinclaiand his cousin Sandi Sincla ...
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