More information : Former Lifeboat House, Eastbank Road. The former lifeboat house was built to a design by Charles H Cooke and opened in 1881. It is constructed of brick beneath a pitched tiled roof with mock-Tudor pargeting to the upper part of the front gable and is rectangular in plan with a projecting front extension. it continued to be used as the lifeboat house until its closure due to silting in the Ribble estuary in 1925. In 1947 it was converted into an ambulance station and front and side extensions were added to house the operations room and fuel pump. New front doors were also added to the building. The ambulance station closed in 1974 and the building had various uses until 1995 when it became a funeral home.
On 9 December 1886 it saw the worst disaster in lifeboat history when the St Annes, Southport and Lytham lifeboats put to sea to aid the German barque 'Mexico' (HOB UID 951889) which was in distress in the Ribble estuary. Fourteen of the Southport lifeboat's crew of sixteen perished while the St. Annes lifeboat 'Laura Janet' (HOB UID 1379270) was washed ashore the following day with the loss of her entire crew of thirteen. The disaster led directly to the foundation of the Lifeboat Saturday Fund by Sir Charles Wright Macara (1845-1929), local resident and influential figure in the Lancashire cotton industry. It initially raised £50,000 for the widows and fifty children of the deceased crew members before evolving into the Lifeboat Flag day street collections. Monuments to the crew of the 'Laura Janet' are located on St Annes South Promenade and in the churchyard of St. Cuthbert's Church, Lytham, and are listed at Grade II GV and Grade II respectively. A blue plaque affixed to the front of the building by the Lytham St. Annes Civic Society notes the 'Mexico' disaster and also notes that 45 lives were saved by the St Annes lifeboat between 1881-1925.
The front gabled elevation contains a single-storey extension to its left side. To the right a modern window with beach pebbles set in render beneath it has been added in front of the doors to the former ambulance station. The gable above is finished in pargeting to either side of a recently replaced oriel window to the former watch room. The elevation is finished with carved weatherboarding to the roof. The left return has two-storey stair tower lit by a round-headed window and topped by a half-hexagonal roof. A single-storey extension with a door and some blocked windows runs along the remainder of the elevation. A half dormer with a louver and carved weatherboarding rises from the old lifeboat house roof at its mid-point along this elevation. The rear elevation has a cambered-arched door to the ground floor with a similar arched louver above and is finished with a gableted roof. The right elevation has a cambered-arched window with the remainder of the elevation having a later garage abutting it.
Interior: Now a funeral home with offices in the front extension. The remainder of the building contains a corridor off which are a waiting room, rooms of repose, storeroom, cold room, and toilets. Remaining original features include a now blocked pedestrian front door, a staircase to the former watch room at the front of the building, roof timbers and some wall pegs for holding lifeboat equipment in the rear storeroom.
The building was assessed for listing in 2009, but did not meet the criteria for addition to the list for the following reasons:
The plan of the former lifeboat house has been changed significantly since it was originally constructed by the erection of extensions to its front and left sides and the building of a garage abutting its right side.
The change of use to a funeral home has completely changed the internal layout of the building.
The former double door entrance to the building has been blocked and an original oriel window on the front elevation has been replaced.
The loss of the crew of the lifeboat 'Laura Janet' is suitably commemorated by the listing of the Lifeboat Monument on South Promenade and the Laura Janet Monument at St Cuthbert's Church, Lytham. (1) |