Hilbre Lifeboat Station

RNLI records the Hilbre Island lifeboat station as operating from 1848 to 1939. Its lifeboats were crewed from Hoylake and supported rescues around the Dee channels and Liverpool Bay.

The Friends of Hilbre and Wirral Council give more detail. In 1848 a stone boathouse and launchway were built for the Hoylake No 2 lifeboat so it could be launched at any state of the tide. Silting around Hoyle Lake had made launching from Hoylake difficult at many states of the tide. The crew was still the Hoylake crew, who walked or were taken over to Hilbre, sometimes by horse and cart, to launch the boat. The council’s plan notes that this usually happened in storm conditions. The RNLI took over all the local lifeboats in 1894. The Hilbre station closed in July 1939, because the motor lifeboats at Hoylake, New Brighton and Rhyl could by then cover this part of Liverpool Bay. In its working life the Hilbre lifeboat was launched 44 times and saved 21 lives.

The surviving building remains one of the island’s most recognisable maritime landmarks. It is part of the Victorian cluster of buildings that Wirral Council treats with the same care as the three individually listed buildings on Hilbre. The council’s plan says the building and slipway were built to give a low-water launch site, and that the station has helped to protect the north end of Hilbre from erosion. The slipway itself is eroding from wave action and from air forced into cracks in the soft sandstone. The Conservation Plan rates its condition as poor and lists interpretation and restoration work for the station. Beside the slip is a deep narrow cutting in the rock, part of the old tide gauge. It was decommissioned in 2009.

Rescues around the islands are carried out today by the RNLI’s West Kirby volunteers, who crew a D class inshore lifeboat. In recent call-outs they were paged after HM Coastguard asked for a launch, and brought people ashore at Sandy Lane slipway. If you are cut off by the tide, stay on the highest ground you can reach, do not try to swim, and call 999 or 112 and ask for the Coastguard. Reports of recent call-outs are on the news page, and each shows how quickly the channels can fill.

Keep to the paths and away from the cliff edge, and keep off the slipway and wet rocks, which are slippery. Do not stay on the island over high water. The route back must be completed within the calculated window, so allow plenty of time, and treat the Dee Lane noticeboard as the source for tide times.