The necessity of a lighthouse was acknowledged in 1856, a design of an iron tower on a granite base was suggested and costs began to be incurred with no results.

[2]: ch7 A new design of the lighthouse by Alexander Gordon and James Nicholas Douglass was put forward in 1867 and approved.

Two steam vessels were used, each capable of carrying 120 tonnes of stone and each equipped with lifting gear,[2]: ch7  as each block weighs 2 to 3 tons.

The reef is the site of the Great Basses wreck, an early 18th-century wreck of an Indian ship, carrying a treasure of silver rupees, that the science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke and Mike Wilson discovered in 1961.

Great Basses was one of a limited number of lighthouses that were designed to house the large Hyperradiant Fresnel lenses that became available at the end of the 19th century.