St Aldhelm"s Head Station

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The National Coastwatch Institution (NCI) sprang to life in Cornwall back in 1994, right after two local fishermen lost their lives under a recently mothballed Coastguard Station at Bass Point. Most of HM Coastguard's visual watch stations had been shut down following a period of rationalization and modernization. The Institution, registered Charity number 1045645, grew out of a grassroots campaign to bring back a visual coastal watch in Cornwall. By November 1994, the first NCI Coastwatch station was up and running at Bass Point, on The Lizard peninsula, Cornwall. Following the successful launch of NCI Bass Point, other stations quickly sprang into action in Devon, Cornwall, East Anglia, Somerset, Sussex, Essex, Dorset, the Tyne-Tees area and South Wales. By September 2014, there were 50 NCI Coastwatch stations operational along the coast of England and Wales, stretching from Fleetwood in the Northwest through Wales to the South Coast, and up the East coast to Tyne and Wear, with over 2000 trained volunteer watchkeepers at the helm.