St Aldhelms Head coastwatch lookout Ref: VS2665

St Aldhelms Head coastwatch lookout

The lookout station at St Aldhelm's Head has watched over this stretch of the Dorset coast since the Coastguard first established a base here in 1895, building four cottages and an original lookout post. The current lookout building dates from the 1970s.

When the Coastguard ended visual watch-keeping duties in 1994, the station passed to the National Coastwatch Institution, a charity formed that year by volunteers after two fishermen drowned within sight of a newly closed lookout elsewhere on the coast.

Opened as an NCI station in May 1995 and staffed by local volunteers, it keeps watch over shipping and walkers along this exposed headland

Radar Memorial at St Aldhelms Head Procession in Court Hill 1904