Coastguard Cottages

The Admiralty bought 3 acres of land in the westmost part of Drunken Marsh (⁶) with access along Manor Way – from the Rev. G.T.C. Barlow and others on 12/6/1882, for £ 300. An officer’s house, a 7-cottage terrace in the ‘Lobster Smack’ style, with outbuildings and a stubby observation tower on the sea-wall, were erected and occupied from 24/3/1883 to 1910. The establishment was: an officer of the Preventive Service, a chief boatman, two commissioned boatmen, four boatmen, and three ‘men’. A bridged footpath led past their flagpost (⁷), allotments and look-out tower, to the Lobster Smack and access to the ‘sea’.