Lifeboat House

TF 94 SW 615/4/10000

WELLS-NEXT-THE-SEA BEACH ROAD Lifeboat House

II

Lifeboat house. 1869. Design attributed to Charles Cooke. Big Carr stone with Holkham white brick dressings. Roof of black glazed pantiles, repaired in places. Single storey, rectangular in plan. Essentially a shed with gable ends given architectural treatment. Gothic Revival style. Each gable with pointed diaphragm arches into three-bay loggia; this space designed for oar storage. In centre of south elevation a broad flat-arched opening with brick relieving arch. Original plank doors replaced by late C20 front of no distinction; this, like the plate glass window in the north elevation, does not extend into the original fabric. Each gable parapet has single step at midpoint and a pitched ashlar finial at its apex. Pointed-arch window in gable head, glazing bars of original design. Iron purlin ties. Eaves to returns have timber dentils; posts supporting roof are bracketed and chamfered; brackets with decorative ends. Three windows similar to that in the gable head already described along each return wall.

Original interior survives in the north halt, now a maritime museum where timber trusses with purlins; boarded sloping ceiling: the southern halt was converted in 1897 to a reading room with fireplace; ground floor opened as tea rooms to celebrate Diamond Jubilee. From this conversion there remains, upstairs, an iron fireplace with, externally, an axial brick ridge stack near the centre of the roof. North elevation with window in centre-flat arched, with pointed diaphragm arches to either side as on the south elevation; pointed-arch window to gable end.

Listing NGR: TF9156343911