04/06/2026
The Larick Beacon, also known locally as “The Pile Lighthouse”, is always a feature of our trips. Older than the nation of Canada, it has watched over more than 170 years of activity on the Tay.
Sitting around a third of a mile off Tayport, on the southern side of the estuary, this distinctive beacon was built in the late 1840s, most likely in 1848 by engineer James Leslie.
Leslie began his career with the Dundee Water Company before becoming one of Scotland’s most respected civil and marine engineers. He was responsible for numerous harbour, pier and coastal engineering projects around the east coast of Scotland, helping shape the maritime infrastructure that supported trade, fishing and transport during the Victorian era. In a departure from his usual marine works, he was also the engineer behind Dundee’s Customs House beside City Quay, a building that still stands today.
Standing 16 metres high, the Larick Beacon consists of a lantern mounted above a timber keeper’s house, all supported on screw piles driven deep into the estuary bed. That unusual construction method is where the nickname “The Pile” comes from.
The design was pioneered by Irish engineer Alexander Mitchell, one of the most remarkable figures in Victorian engineering. Completely blind from his early twenties, Mitchell lived in an era when disability often meant exclusion from professional life. Yet he refused to let that define him. Through touch, spatial awareness and an extraordinary ability to visualise structures in his mind, he continued designing and inventing throughout his career.
His revolutionary screw-pile foundation allowed lighthouses, beacons and piers to be built on soft sand and mud where conventional foundations would fail. The invention transformed marine engineering around the world and made structures such as the Larick Beacon possible. Mitchell’s achievements earned him international recognition, proving that determination and ingenuity could overcome barriers that many of his contemporaries would have considered insurmountable.
Although the light has been inactive since around 1960, the beacon remains one of the Tay’s most recognisable landmarks. These days the Cormorants have the main claim on it, but it still stands as a remarkable reminder of the estuary’s maritime history.
Every time we pass it, we’re reminded that this wee beacon has witnessed the age of sail, the rise of steamships, Dundee’s industrial boom, two world wars, and now the growing appreciation of the Tay’s wildlife and heritage of which hopefully we are playing a part in ♥️
Not bad for a structure standing alone in the river for over 170 years.
📸 by us. Some old, some new. Click for best view 🫶
