Mumbles Coastguard

Mumbles Lighthouse and the old Coastguard lookout at Tutt Head, Bracelet Bay,  overlooking Bracelet and Limeslade Bays >

The Mumbles Coastguard at Tutt Head

The replacement building was in service from  1970 to 2015 and then it was used as offices and for storage. Theft of a section of the lead on the roof, complicated matters. 

Post 1970.

Post 1979.

The entrance road to the new Mumbles Coastguard Station.

The Mumbles Coastguard at Tutt Head

From  1850 to 1970

The inside of the old Coastguard Hut at Tutt Head, in the 1960s, which overlooked the wartime Signal Room. Photo: John Pile. 
A general view of the Bracelet Bay car park, including the old Coastguard Hut and WW2 Signal Room as well as the wartime Engine Room, which powered the Naval Searchlights which searched the sea, 1950s.
The old coastguard cottages, Westbourne Place . At the time this was part of Mumbles Divitional Headquarters 

by Bet Ogbourne & Pat Symmons

... operational on Mumbles Hill and by the 1870s, it was decided to build a Coastguard Station, for Officers and their families. It was constructed in the form of a square ...


The old coastguard houses, about 1930

by John Jeffers

                      Mumbles Coastguard Station, Westbourne Place       By John Jeffers The Mumbles Coastguard Station, then at Westbourne Place, was much larger than we had previously experienced. It was the Divisional Headquarters where ..

Coastguard Lifesaving Apparatus Crew (LSA) 1919.

Mumbles LSA at Practice, 1919. 

A group of the WRNS at Tutt Head, on the left is Joan S (Jones),  ‘Visual Signaller WRNS’.
More: I served in the WRNS at Tutt Head > 

  Mrs Joan Jones served in the WRNS at The Naval Signal Station at The Tutt, Bracelet Bay, Mumbles.

The Royal Navy took over The Coastguard Station during WW2

The photo shows a group of the WRNS, with Joan Joans on the left, then Peggy, and fourth from left is the Cook, Jean.

by John Powell and Kate Elliott Jones

The Fort on Lighthouse Island as well as The Coastguard Lookout & Naval Signal Station at the Tutt were controlled from the same headquarters. 

There were two searchlight emplacements on Tutt Head. These have been demolished, and only the bases remain.   

by Carol Powell M.A.

... John, Assistant Secretary of the Lifeboat Committee and his wife; Stanley Poolton, H.M. Coastguard; Tom Way; Jack Gammon (Lifeboat mechanic); Mumbles’ own Harry Libby, Mayor of Swansea in that ...

by Carol Powell M.A.

... the Mumbles Head, to get to from Mumbles to Limeslade or Broadslade (Bracelet).       The Coastguard Station at Church Parks   The main Coastguard station was at Church Parks, consisting of a ...

 by Kate Jones

and the S. S. Samtampa   by Kate Jones (written in 2007)     On 23rd April 1947, an appalling tragedy took place on the coast of Glamorgan. A former Liberty cargo ship ...

A collection of three Memories:-   Peter Dover-Wade said, 'I remember well the night of the storm and that on hearing of the tragedy, my friend and I, both sixteen ...'

by Tom Ace

by Tom Ace During the   war, we were   called out 23 times and saved 137 lives. I remember two occasions especially.

An extract from The Tithe map 1804

The first Coastguard Station was positioned on Mumbles Hill and its signaal mast can be glimpsed at the top of this early photo.

Congratulations to HM Coastguard which marked its 200th anniversary on Saturday 15 January 2022