A shore-based lighthouse located on West Harbour Road in Granton, 2½ miles (4 km) north northwest of the centre of Edinburgh, Granton Lighthouse was built in 1874 as part of the Northern Lighthouse Stores and Buoy Yard. This was never an operational lighthouse, rather it was used for training purposes and to test new lights before they were transported to be fitted elsewhere. The Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB) leased the site from the Duke of Buccleuch in 1852 and it became the base from which they supplied their lighthouses.
The lighthouse was added to an existing brick-built complex of sheds and stores which were constructed 1868-69 and remain today. In 1892 a coal-gas works was built here to produce the fuel to light buoys and beacons but this was removed in the 1930s as technology moved forward.
The site was improved and extended until the 1960s. The NLB's supply ship Pharos was based in the adjacent Granton Harbour until the early 1970s when it moved to Leith. By the late 1990s, all that remained was the NLB Engineering Storage and Test Facility but, in 2001, they left the site for a new depot in Oban.
Subsequently the buildings have become a cultural hub, providing art gallery space, recording and rehearsal studios.
