Hythe Lifeboat Stations

Two lifeboat stations at Hythe, consisting of a northern station built in 1893 with a circa 1940 addition, and a southern station built in 1934, probably supplied by the firm of Lewis and Lewis (later Lewis and Duvivier) of Haywards Heath.

NORTHERN LIFEBOAT STATION

The northern station is constructed of polychrome brick, mainly yellow with red brick dressings, cement bands and a cement-rendered north-west gable. It has a Welsh slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles. The building is rectangular in plan, comprising four bays with a splayed northern addition divided into two rooms.

The north-west end features a gable with moulded stone coping with kneelers and a ball finial, though most of this front is now concealed beneath the circa 1940 yellow brick addition with a flat concrete roof. This addition has nearly full-height double doors facing west and two small square window openings facing north-west, with the lower part featuring a flat-arched entrance. The side elevations have moulded brick cornices with two cement bands and cambered brick window openings containing wooden casement windows. The east side has a ledged and braced door. The south-east or seaward end has a gable with late twentieth-century brickwork but retains the original cement kneelers to the gable and sliding wooden doors below, though the opening behind the wooden doors has been filled in by later twentieth-century breeze-blocks.

Internally, the lifeboat house is divided into four bays with a wooden kingpost roof. The south-eastern bay is floored and approached by a steep wooden ladder. The 1940 addition has a separate chamber.

SOUTHERN LIFEBOAT STATION

The southern station is steel-framed on a concrete plinth, with walls and roof clad in corrugated iron and a boarded wooden interior. It comprises five bays with a barrel-vaulted roof, the south-east bay rising to two storeys while the remainder is single-storey.

The south-east or seaward elevation has a first-floor oriel window, probably dating to circa 1940. The original large doors for launching the lifeboat have been replaced by smaller late twentieth-century doors. The side elevations have nine-light continuous casements. The north-west or landward elevation has one window at the top and a ledged and braced pedestrian entrance.

Internally, the roof structure consists of exposed steel trusses with wooden boarding above, and the steel wall frame is concealed by wooden boarding. The south-eastern bay contains an upper room with concertina braces to the floor, approached by a steep wooden staircase. The first floor room has identical wooden boarding to the rest of the building, though a late twentieth-century partition wall has been erected at the top of the stairs with a late twentieth-century six-panelled door. The north-eastern side contains a small office with boarded walls.

HISTORY

The original Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI) lifeboat station at Hythe was established in 1876 on a site at the junction of Princes Parade and Seabrook Road. Following the loss of the Benvenue in November 1891, a decision was made to move to another site. The Seabrook Road lifeboat station was converted into a house and demolished in 1956.

The 1893 lifeboat house was built on a site adjacent to the Hythe and Sandgate Gas Company premises at the end of The Parade, Hythe. The existing lifeboat from Seabrook Road, the Meyer de Rothschild, was moved to the new lifeboat house. Three successive lifeboats were named The Meyer de Rothschild after the donor, as was customary. In 1929 the City of Nottingham came into service, a gift from Nottingham Lifeboat Fund. In 1934 a new larger lifeboat called The Viscountess Wakefield was donated by Viscount Wakefield, who lived in Hythe and was made a Freeman in 1930. As the new lifeboat was too large for the existing lifeboat house, a new lifeboat station with a pre-fabricated steel frame, clad in corrugated iron with a barrel-shaped roof, was constructed immediately to the south-east of the 1893 lifeboat house in 1934.

In 1940 the coxswain of The Viscountess Wakefield, Henry (nicknamed Buller) Griggs, refused to take the vessel to Dunkirk for Operation Dynamo unless he could take his own crewmen, whom he considered to know the Channel waters better than any Royal Navy petty officers. The Royal Navy commandeered the vessel and it was the only lifeboat to be lost in the operation. Buller Griggs and his brother Dick were dismissed from the lifeboat service three weeks after Dunkirk. During the Second World War the upper floor of the 1934 lifeboat station was used for spotting doodlebugs. Also during the war, a mine-watching post was built on the landward side of the 1893 lifeboat house as Hythe beach was mined to prevent an enemy landing.

After the war the lifeboat was not replaced. The 1893 lifeboat house was used for storage by the local scouts, and the 1934 lifeboat house was put to various uses, including a studio for Fred Cuming RA and later a boathouse and clubhouse for a diving group.

The 1893 lifeboat house is shown on the 1898 Ordnance Survey map with a rectangular shape. The 1934 lifeboat house first appears on the 1938 Ordnance Survey map with an identical footprint to the present day.