The Inch Cape, or Bell Rock, is a long, narrow reef on the east coast of Scotland, at the mouth of the Frith of Tay, and some dozen of miles from the nearest land. At high water the whole ledge is buried out of sight; and even at the ebb the highest part of it is only three or four feet out of the water. In the days of old, as the tradition goes, one of the abbots of Arbroath, among many good works, exhibited his piety and humanity by placing upon a float attached to the perilous reef a large bell, so suspended as to be tolled by the rising and falling of the waves.

Many a storm-tossed mariner heard the friendly knell that warned him of the nearness of the fatal rock, and changed his course before it was too late, with blessings on the good old monk who had hung up the bell; but after some years, one of the pirates who infested the coast cut it down in wanton cruelty, and was one of the first who suffered from the loss. Not long after, he perished upon this very rock, which a dense fog shrouded from sight, and no bell gave timely warning of.

After the lapse of many years, two attempts were made to raise a beacon of spars upon the rock; but one after the other they fell a prey to the angry waves, and were hardly set up before they disappeared. It was not till the beginning of the century that the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses took up the idea of erecting a lighthouse on this reef, the most dangerous on all the coast. Several years elapsed before they got the sanction of Parliament to the undertaking, and 1807 arrived before it was actually entered upon.

Mr. Robert Stevenson, to whom the work was intrusted as engineer, had from a very early age been employed in connection with lighthouses. He went almost directly from school to the office of Mr. Thomas Smith of Edinburgh, and when that gentleman was appointed engineer to the Northern Lighthouse Commissioners, became his assistant, and afterwards successor. When only nineteen, Mr. Stevenson superintended the construction of the lighthouse on the island of Little Cumbray; and during the time he was engineer to the Commissioners, which post he held till 1842, he erected no fewer than forty-two lighthouses, and introduced a great many valuable improvements into the system. His reputation, however, will be chiefly perpetuated as the architect of the Bell Rock Lighthouse.

On the 17th August 1807, Mr. Stevenson and his men landed on the rock, to the astonishment and discomposure of the seals who had, from time immemorial, been in undisturbed possession of it, and now floundered off into the water on the approach of the usurpers. The workmen at once set about preparing the rock for the erection of a temporary pyramid on which a barrack-house was to be placed for the reception of the workmen. They could only work on the rock for a few hours at spring-tide. As soon as the flood-tide began to rise around them, putting out the fire of the smith's forge, and gradually covering the rock, they had to gather up their tools and retreat to a floating barrack moored at a considerable distance, in order to reach which they had to row in small boats to the tender, by which they were then conveyed to their quarters. The operations of this first season were particularly trying to the men, on account of their having to row backwards and forwards between the rock and the tender at every tide, which in rough weather was a very heavy pull, and having often after that to work on the rock knee deep in water, only quitting it for the boats when absolutely compelled by the swelling waves. Sometimes the sea would be so fierce for days together that no boat could live in it, and the men had, therefore, to remain cooped up wearily on board the floating barrack.

One day in September, when the engineer and thirty-one men were on the rock, the tender broke from its moorings, and began to drift away from the rock, just as the tide was rising. Mr. Stevenson, perched on an eminence above the rest, surveying them at their labours, was the first, and for a while, the men being all intent on their work, the only one, who observed what had happened. He said nothing, but went to the highest point of the rock, and kept an anxious watch on the progress of the vessel and the rising of the sea. First the men on the lower tier of the works, then by degrees those above them, struck work on the approach of the water. They gathered up their tools and made towards the spot where the boats were moored, to get their jackets and stockings and prepare for quitting the rock. What their feelings were when they found only a couple of boats there, and the tender drifting off with the other in tow, may be conceived. All the peril of their situation must have flashed across their minds as they looked across the raging sea, and saw the distance between the tender and the rock increasing every moment, while all around them the water rose higher and higher. In another hour, the waves would be rolling twelve feet and more above the crag on which they stood, and all hope of the tender being able to work round to them was being quickly dissipated. They watched the fleeting vessel and the rising tide, and their hearts sank within them, but not a word was uttered. They stood silently counting their numbers and calculating the capacity of the boats; and then they turned their eyes upon their trusted leader, as if their last hope lay in his counsel. Stevenson never forgot the appalling solemnity of the moment. One chance, and but a slender one, of escape alone occurred to him. It was that, stripping themselves of their clothes, and divesting the two boats, as much as possible, of everything that weighted and encumbered them, so many men should take their seats in the boats, while the others hung on by the gunwales; and that they should then work their way, as best they could, towards either the tender or the floating barrack. Stevenson was about to explain this to his men, but found that all power of speech had left him. The anxiety of that dreadful moment had parched his throat, and his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. He stooped to one of the little pools at his feet to moisten his fevered lips with the salt water. Suddenly a shout was raised, "A boat! A boat!" and through the haze a large pilot boat could dimly be discerned making towards the rock. The pilot had observed the Smeaton drifting off, and, guessing at once the critical position of the workmen on the rock, had hastened to their relief.

Next morning when the bell sounded on board the barrack for the return to the rock, only eight out of the twenty-six workmen, beside the foreman and seamen, made their appearance on deck to accompany their leader. Mr. Stevenson saw it would be useless to argue with them then. So he made no remark, and proceeded with the eight willing workmen to the rock, where they spent four hours at work. On returning to the barrack, the eighteen men who had remained on board appeared quite ashamed of their cowardice; and without a word being said to them, were the first to take their places in the boats when the bell rang again in the afternoon.

At length the barrack was completed, and the men were then relieved from the toil of rowing backwards and forwards between the tender and the rock, as well as from the constant sickness which tormented them on board the floating barrack. They were now able to prolong their labours, when the tide permitted, into the night. At such times the rock assumed a singularly picturesque and romantic aspect—its surface crowded with men in all variety of attitudes, the two forges and numerous torches lighting up the scene, and throwing a lurid gleam across the waters, and the loud dong of the anvils mingling with the dashing of the breakers.

On the 18th July 1808, the site having been properly excavated, the first stone of the lighthouse was laid by the Duke of Argyle; and by the end of the second season some five or six feet of building had been erected, and were left to the mercy of the waves till the ensuing spring. The third season's operations raised the masonry to a height of thirty feet above the sea, and the fourth season saw the completion of the tower. On the first night in February of the succeeding year (1811) the lamp was lit, and beamed forth across the waters.

The Bell Rock Tower is 100 feet in height, 42 feet in diameter at the base, and 15 feet at the top. The door is 30 feet from the base, and the ascent is by a massive bronze ladder. The "light" is revolving, and presents a white and red light alternately, by means of shades of red glass arranged in a frame. The machinery which causes the revolution of the lamp is also applied to the tolling of two large bells, in order to give warning to the mariner of his approach to the rock in foggy weather, thus reviving the traditional practice from which the rock takes its name.