The Princess Royal is to visit an exhibition telling the tale of the disappearance of three lighthouse keepers on the Flannan Isles.
Princess Anne, the patron of the Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB), is to visit the Flannan Isles exhibition and former keepers’ shore station at Breasclete on the Isle of Lewis on October 2.
It was on Boxing Day 1900, that it was discovered that James Ducat, Thomas Marshall and Donald MacArthur had vanished.
A search party found – after climbing 160 steps up the cliffside – a door ajar, an untouched meal and an overtoppled chair.
But there was no sign of the keepers and to this day the mystery has never been solved.
An exhibition in memory of the men opened earlier this year at Breasclete and runs until October 31.
Passing ships noted at the time the lighthouse it was lit on the night of December 14, but out the following evening.
A subsequent search by a landing party also two sets of oilskins missing, with the third hanging on its usual hook.
Upstairs in the 75ft high tower, a canary was starving on its perch and the lighthouse log and work notes for two days were on a slate.
There was no trace of the men and it was assumed they had been swept away by a freak wave.
But other rumours, such as that one keeper had murdered the other two and then thrown himself into the sea in a fit of remorse, that they had been abducted by foreign spies or aliens, or that they had met their fate through the malevolent presence of a boat filled with ghosts, continue to this day.
Keen pharologist, The Princess Royal has a long fascination with lighthouses. She recently spent three days off the Scottish coast on board the NLB vessel Pharos visiting more beacons.
She aims to see all the 206 lighthouses and major lights in Scotland and is believed to have passed the half-way point.
