EYES ALONG THE COAST
The Prawle Point Watchstation stands 200 feet above sea level at the most southerly point in Devon. As with other NCI stations, it is manned by unpaid volunteers who keep watch along the coast looking out for mariners, coast walkers and wildlife.
W
atchkeepers are the eyes and ears along the coast, keeping a visual watch, monitoring radio channels, using radar and providing a
listening watch in poor visibility. Prawle Point is Devon’s southernmost extremity.
Projecting into the English Channel between Bolt Head to the west and Start Point to the east, its lofty promontory (200’ above sea level) has served as a vantage point since ancient times and appropriately enough, the word ‘Prawle’ is Old English for ‘lookout’. In medieval times it is possible that a chapel dedicated to St. Brendan stood on the site of the present Lookout and later, during the Napoleonic Wars, an Admiralty Signal Station was in operation nearby. The present building is believed to have been
erected by the Admiralty as a Coast Guard Lookout in the 1860s. It became a Lloyd’s Signal Station in 1882 and from here signalmen telegraphed details of passing ships to Lloyd’s of London for the benefit of anxious owners and underwriters. Over the years Prawle Point has gained a fearsome reputation as a ‘shiptrap.’ In the 19th
and early 20th
centuries, for example, no less than seven merchant ships were wrecked on the west side of the Point. With the help of the Prawle Rescue Team, a volunteer Life Saving Apparatus Company formed in 1872; the men at the Prawle Point Station brought many of the survivors of these and other wrecks safely ashore using rocket lines and breeches buoy. In 1951 the Admiralty handed the Station over to HM
Coastguard and by the early 1970s constant 24 hour watch was being maintained by a team of five regular officers and six auxiliaries. However, the growing use of VHF radio for distress signalling led to a steady reduction in visual watchkeeping and, from1982, the
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