Talk:Penarth Lifeboat Station

Launching in the 1800s

I know this is original research and I cannot find any documentary proof, but my grandfather (who was born in Penarth and lived there most of his life until his death in the late 1960s) told me that as a child he used to watch the original lifeboat being launched. When the maroons sounded to summon the crews he and dozens of local children would rush to watch the spectacle. He was adamant that the boat was actually kept in the stone-built boathouse on Tower Hill, in the corner of the Coastguard Cottages and the Trinity House watch tower grounds.

The boat was laboriously lowered down the steep pathway to the beach by the crewmen with ropes attached to a trolley-launcher - and slowly hauled back up again afterwards while the crewmen sang rhythmic chants and shanties. It sounds daft to me, when the boat could have been logically kept closer to the sea - but he seemed pretty certain in his recollections. He described how the boat on its trolley only just passed under a small bridge that used to cross the pathway, connecting the cliff top parks, with great care being taken by the chaps hauling the boat.

Unless it is documented somewhere it is unlikely there is anyone alive today to corroberate this. However, as late as the 1980s (when the steep path was resurfaced) you could still see the cobbled gulleys designed so that the lifeboat trolley's wheels would fit into them. 21st CENTURY GREENSTUFF 14:40, 19 October 2010 (UTC)