How do you build a lighthouse on a rock that is underwater at high tide, when you need to use sailing and rowing boats to get there, and when all the stone you use has to be cut and shaped by hand? And not a computer or calculator in sight. I'd always been impressed by images of wave-swept lighthouses, but even more so now I've read about how some of the first ones were built.

This book covers the start of the building of lighthouses around the coasts of the UK by following the progress of members of the Stevenson family who went into the lighthouse-building business. This is the same 'Stevenson' as Robert Louis (a fact made a bit too much of in the book for my taste, but I think it was done to try to appeal to more general readers, but it does not really get in the way of the story).

Almost as fascinating as the stories of how the lighthouses were built is the introductory section on how to finance them. Many people were against them ('deaths at sea are the will of God', for example!), and unlike building a new harbour, where you can charge ships for using it, you can't charge people for using a lighthouse!

A good read, and a good glimpse into the early days of modern engineering.

(Prices and pub dates refer to the latest paperback edition, review based on 2000 paperback edition).