The Inch Cape, or Bell Rock, is a “dangerous sunken reef,” situated on the northern side of the entrance of the Firth of Forth, at a distance of eleven miles from the promontory of the Red Head, in Forfarshire; of seventeen miles from the island of May; and of thirty miles from St. Abb’s Head, in Berwickshire. Its exact position is in lat. 56° 29´ N., and long. 2° 22´ E. Its extreme length is estimated by Mr. Stevenson at 1427 feet, and its extreme breadth at about 30 feet, but its configuration or margin is extremely irregular. The geological formation of the rock is a reddish sandstone, which in some places contains whitish and greenish spots of circular and oval forms. Its lower portions are covered with various aquatic plants, such as the great tangle (fucus digitatus), and the badderlock, or hen-ware (fucus esculentus); while the higher parts are clothed with the smaller fuci, such as fucus marmillosus, and fucus palmatus, or common dulse.
The name “Inch Cape” occurs in a chart published in 1583, and refers, we suppose, to its situation as an “inch,” or island, off the Red Head promontory. Its better known appellation, “the Bell Rock,” may allude to its bell-like figure, but more probably originated in the circumstance that a bell with a float was fixed upon it by a former abbot of Aberbrothock (Arbroath), in such a manner that it was set in motion by the winds and waves, and by its deep tones afforded a much-needed warning to navigators of the dangerous character of the spot.
In connection with this humane device—whose actual existence there seems no good reason to doubt—an old tradition has long been current, which Southey embodies with much picturesque effect in his well-known ballad of “Sir Ralph the Rover”:—
“No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The ship was still as she could be;
Her sails from heaven received no motion,
Her keel was steady in the ocean.
“Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flowed over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.
“The Abbot of Aberbrothok
Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock;
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,
And over the waves its warning rung.
“When the rock was hid by the surge’s swell,
The mariners heard the warning bell;
And then they knew the perilous rock,
And blessed the Abbot of Aberbrothok.
“The sun in heaven was shining gay,
All things were joyful on that day;
The sea-birds screamed as they wheeled around,
And there was joyaunce in their sound.
“The buoy of the Inchcape bell was seen,
A darker speck on the ocean green;
Sir Ralph the Rover walked his deck,
And he fixed his eye on the darker speck.
“He felt the cheering power of spring,
It made him whistle, it made him sing;
His heart was mirthful to excess,
But the Rover’s mirth was wickedness.