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Photo: Stanley Bruce (User: Bard o' the Broch), CC BY-SA 1.0 via Wikimedia Commons
By the 18th century, makeshift lighthouses were obviously inadequate for the growth in shipping. This was partly driven by conflict with France, which made the Channel dangerous, so shipping went all the way north around Scotland to reach the Atlantic. A programme of lighthouse construction began and the town's 16th-century Kinnaird Castle in 1787 became the site of the first lighthouse on mainland Scotland. It's now a museum; entry to the lighthouse itself is by guided tour on the hour. The modern automated lighthouse is adjacent. Tours may take in the Wine (or Wynd) Tower, probably just a medieval storeroom, but inevitably with a hoaky legend attached. "Ooh, and on a dark stormy night you can still hear the ghostly piper of - ".
Kinnaird Head is a headland projecting into the North Sea, within the town of Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, on the east coast of Scotland. The 16th-century Kinnaird Castle was converted in 1787 for use as the Kinnaird Head Lighthouse, the first lighthouse in Scotland to be lit by the Commissioners of Northern Lights. Kinnaird Castle and the nearby Wine Tower were described by W. Douglas Simpson as two of the nine castles of the Knuckle, referring to the rocky headland of north-east Aberdeenshire. The lighthouse is a category A listed building. and the Wine Tower. is a scheduled monument. The buildings around the base of the lighthouse are the work of Robert Stevenson.
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