Brooke Lifeboat
The stretch of coast between the Needles and St Catherine’s Point is the most treacherous on the Isle of Wight. The clay and smooth rock slabs known as Brook and Brighstone Ledges extend half a mile out to sea, stretch for six miles and have claimed many ships and lives in thick fogs, heavy ground swells and wild south-westerly storms.
For hundreds of years, ‘wreck,’ like smuggling, was an important source of income for Islanders. Cargoes they came across in this way included valuable building materials, spices, salt, sugar and wine. If the longshoreman could not use the goods themselves they would sell them on, often using the smugglers’ distribution routes and networks. The timbers from wrecks were used to build houses, sheds and boats; the panelling in Mottistone Church roof, for example, is taken from the Cedarine, wrecked in 1862.
A record of vessels ashore between Compton Chine and Chilton Chine, Isle of Wight.
Courtesy of Nova Scotia Museum
Tales of rescues from 1301 - 1859 before the days of the first Brooke lifeboat Dauntless which was first called out on New Year's Day 1861
Witte Zee February 23rd 1964
The Carbon November 9th 1947
The Kingsbridge
Then as now the lifeboats were supported by public donations. We see that in Brook there was a tradition of raising money for the lifeboat in both entertaining and instructive ways:
An entertainment was given in the Hulverstone School Room yesterday, the profits of which were donated to the Lifeboat Disaster Fund.
Subcategories
Memories
In this section of the website you will find the memories of local people that relate to the Brooke lifeboat station.