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Its correct name is the island of The Bass. It is a volcanic plug and over 100 m high, and stands in the Firth of Forth Islands SPA, a Special Protection Area covering some, but not all of the islands in the inner and outer Firth. The Bass Rock itself is an SSSI, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, in its own right, because of its Gannet colony. It plays host to at least 40,000 pairs of Gannets and is the largest single rock gannetry in the world so that, when viewed from the mainland, large regions of the surface appear white due to the sheer number of birds (and their droppings). In fact the scientific name for the Gannet, Sula bassana or Morus bassanus, derives its name from the rock. They were traditionally known locally as 'Solan Goose'.
Historically the home of the Lauder of The Bass family (from whom Sir Harry Lauder is descended), they are the earliest recorded proprietors of the island, and said to have received it from King Malcolm Canmore. Their crest is, appropriately, a Gannet standing upon a rock. The family had from an early date a castle on the island, which they lost during the Civil war, and which subsequently (1671) became a notorious Gaol for many decades where many religious and political prisoners were sent. John Blackadder, the best known of the Covenanting martyrs, died on the Bass in 1686. He is buried at North Berwick, where a United Free Church was named after him.
In 1497 King James IV visited the Bass and stayed in the castle with Sir Robert Lauder of The Bass (d.before Feb 1508). The boatmen who conveyed the King from Dunbar were paid 14 shillings.
Not far above the landing-place the slope is crossed by a curtain wall, which naturally follows the lie of the ground, having sundry projections and round bastions where a rocky projection offers a suitable foundation. The parapets are battlemented, with the usual walk along the top of the walls. Another curtain wall at right-angles runs down to the sea close to the landing-place, ending in a ruined round tower, whose vaulted base has poorly splayed and apparently rather unskilfully constructed embrasures. The entrance passes through this outwork wall close to where it joins the other. The main defences are entered a little farther on in the same line, through a projecting two-story building which has some fireplaces with very simple and late mouldings. The buildings are of the local basalt, and the masonry is rough rubble; there are, as is so frequently the case, no very clear indications for dating the different parts, which were in all probability erected at different times.
A little beyond the entrance there is a tower that formed a simple bastion and to which has been added a gabled chamber in the 17th century, which, though of restricted dimensions, must have been comfortable enough, with blue Dutch tiles round its moulded fireplace, now very much decayed.
During the 16th and 17th centuries there was sufficient grass present for 100 sheep to graze. Strangely, the fresh water well was right at the top of the island, where today the fog-horn is situated.
Half-way up the island on a small plateau stands the ruin of St.Baldred's Chapel, which is sited upon a cell or cave in which this Scottish Saint spent some time. Although the Lauders held most of the Bass Rock this part of it had remained in the ownership of The Church until 1316 when they granted it to the family. The chapel appears to have been rebuilt by the Lauder family several times. A Papal Bull dated 6th May, 1493, refers to the Parish Church of the Bass, or the Chapel of St.Baldred, being "noviter erecta" at that time. On the 5th January 1542 we find John Lauder, Scotland's Public Accuser of Heretics, and a son of Sir Robert Lauder of The Bass, Knt.,(d.before Feb.1508), as "the Cardinal's Secretary" representing Cardinal David Beaton at a reconsecration of the restored and ancient St.Baldred's chapel on The Bass. In 1576 it is recorded that the Church on the Bass, and that at Auldhame (on the mainland) required no readers, doubtless something to do with the Reformation.
It is also home to a 20 metre Lighthouse, built in 1902 by David Stevenson, who demolished the 13th century keep, or governor's house, and some other buildings within the castle for the stone. It has been unmanned since 1988.
It is sometimes called, "the Ailsa Craig of the East".