The First Lifeboat Station in Britain

Photo by: ntprints.com

The remains of the first lifeboat station in Britain, on Formby Beach.

The world’s oldest lifeboat station is going to be in a new television series on this weekend.

The landmark was built in Formby between 1771 and 1776.

This Saturday on Channel 4, it will be among landmarks on the Formby coastline which will feature in a new series which is called Britain at Low Tide.

The programme will take viewers on a journey through Britain’s maritime, industrial and natural history.

The series starts this Saturday, at 8pm.

Tori Herridge, who is a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum, presents the series.

It also features input from Sefton coast expert John Dempsey.

William Hutchinson, who was the Liverpool Dock Master, founded Britain’s first lifeboat station in Formby. No exact record has been found, but we believe the boat used to have been a “Mersey Gig”.

This amazing station was built on what would later become Lifeboat Road.

On the night of November 19, 1833, the station’s crew helped save the lives of 13 men when pilot ship The Good Intent was caught in a terrible storm in the Irish Sea, off Formby Beach.

The station was abandoned in 1918 and eventually demolished in the 1960s.

The foundations of the last of the lifeboat station buildings remain on the beach.

Earlier this year, Wetherspoons decided to name their new pub in Formby The Lifeboat, which reflects the town’s historic association with sea rescue.