A STEEP-SIDED volcanic rock in the Firth of Forth, not far from North Berwick, the history of the Bass Rock goes far back into time.

Baldred, the East Lothian saint, is said to have founded a hermitage on the island around 600 AD, and the ruins of St Baldred’s Chapel still stand.

The Bass Rock passed into the ownership of the Lauder family, who built a castle on the island and kept sheep as a source of nourishment.

King James I used the Bass as a prison for his political enemies.

In 1497, King James IV visited the Bass as a guest of Sir Robert Lauder, staying in his castle. James VI also came to the Bass in 1581 as a guest of a later Lauder; he liked the island so much that he offered to purchase it, but here he was snubbed.

During the reign of Charles II, the Bass became a notorious prison, mainly used for the Covenanters.

As many as 39 of these religious dissidents were held on the island, under appalling conditions: there was a well that produced fresh water, but fresh meat was a scarcity and the fishy taste of the seabirds was a torment to the wretched prisoners.

In 1691, four Jacobite officers were imprisoned on the Bass but they successfully took over control of the island and ordered the garrison to depart. After reinforcements had been received, they withstood a siege of nearly three years, under trying conditions, before they surrendered with full military honours in May 1694.

The Bass later passed into the ownership of the Dalrymple family, to which it still belongs today.

The Bass Rock lighthouse was constructed in 1902 by the celebrated engineer David Stevenson, a cousin of Robert Louis. He made sure that parts of the old castle were demolished for the stone to be harvested to build the 20-metre lighthouse, which served its purpose well for many years to come.

It was lit with gas derived from vaporised paraffin oil for many years, monitored by the lighthouse keeper.

Since 1988, when the lighthouse was converted to electricity and remotely controlled, the lighthouse keeper was no longer needed, and the Bass Rock has been without any permanent human resident.

From his house ‘Rockstowes’ on Melbourne Road, the celebrated postcard artist Reginald Phillimore enjoyed uninterrupted views of the Bass Rock.

He had a fascination with the island, visited it many times and wrote a guidebook that he published himself.

The Bass Rock is home to the largest gannet colony in the world: 150,000 birds spend their summer residence here, having been in Africa for the winter.

The gannet, or ‘solan goose’ as it was known in Phillimore’s time, is a large and formidable-looking seabird, with a white body, a yellow neck and head, and black and white speckled wings and tail.

The reason that much of the Bass Rock appears white from a distance is the sheer number of birds and their acrid droppings.

The gannet hunts fish by diving headlong into the sea, as any visitor to the Bass Rock can observe at close range.

The air is full of birds, which are squawking cacophonously, and the smell from their droppings is very noticeable.

Phillimore made some beautiful postcards featuring the Bass Rock gannets; he is likely to have travelled to the island from Canty Bay or on a vessel from North Berwick, but nowadays access to the Bass can be arranged via the Scottish Seabird Centre.

This is an edited extract from Jan Bondeson’s book R.P. Phillimore’s East Lothian (Stenlake Publishing 2020)