Qualla: Kimmeridge Lifeboat Station

Kimmeridge Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On the night of 25 September 1868, the schooner Liberty of Portsmouth struck Kimmeridge Ledge in a full gale. Henry Stocks, the Chief Officer of the Kimmeridge Coastguard, and five of his men got down to the rocks and tried to reach her. The RNLI later voted them three pounds ten shillings for their courage. Every soul aboard the Liberty was lost. By the time the year ended, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution had agreed there had to be a boat at Kimmeridge - and within twelve months, a wooden boathouse stood on the western edge of Kimmeridge Bay, built at the personal expense of a country reverend.

Kimmeridge Lifeboat Station: A Boathouse Built on Conscience

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Liberty disaster moved the RNLI's committee with unusual speed. The Inspector of Lifeboats visited Kimmeridge in October 1868; his report was approved on 5 November. By the April meeting in 1869, the Reverend Nathaniel Bond had stepped forward with an offer that made the proj...

Kimmeridge Lifeboat Station: The Stralsund Rescue

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

At eleven o'clock on the night of 9 December 1874, the German vessel Stralsund - bound from her namesake city on the Baltic - was driven onto the rocks east of Kimmeridge. The Mary Heape launched into the storm. The same storm threw her back onto the beach. The crew tried again t...

Kimmeridge Lifeboat Station: Three Boats, One Name

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

By 1881 the original Mary Heape was retired and replaced - by another second-hand boat. This was the Sheffield, a 32-footer built in 1866 and previously stationed elsewhere. Benjamin Heape funded the move and renamed her, too, Mary Heape. In 1886 the cutter Ceres of Poole was cau...

Kimmeridge Lifeboat Station: The Augustus Arkwright

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On 9 May 1888 the third lifeboat - the first new one Kimmeridge had ever received - was dragged out of the boathouse to the launch of a signal rocket and the murmur of a sizeable crowd. After a speech from Lieutenant-Colonel Mansel and a blessing from the Reverend W. C. Browne, s...

Kimmeridge Lifeboat Station: A Quiet Disestablishment

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On 13 February 1896, after a report by the District Inspector, the RNLI committee voted to discontinue Kimmeridge Lifeboat Station. The decision was administrative, not dramatic - shipping patterns had shifted, neighbouring stations could cover the bay, and the costs no longer ju...