The Upper Lighthouse is one of a pair of lighthouses built in 1818 on the Calf of Man, the small island off the Isle of Man's south-western tip, under the Isle of Man and Calf of Man Lighthouses Act 1815. It was designed by the noted Scottish lighthouse engineer Robert Stevenson to warn shipping of the Chicken Rock reef lying off the Calf's southern end. Together with its twin, the Lower Lighthouse, it guided mariners for over half a century until 1875, when both were superseded by a single new lighthouse built directly on Chicken Rock itself, better placed to warn ships in foggy conditions. The two early Calf lighthouses have been disused as navigational aids ever since, though they survive as among the oldest lighthouse structures associated with the Isle of Man.