Heritage Walk : Clifford's Fort and the Tynemouth Lifeboats

Starts and finishes outside the Old Low Light Heritage Centre. An easy walk to Prior’s Haven and back.

Join Martin Kenny, a retired master mariner, former lifeboat coxswain and long-time volunteer with the heritage centre on this walk to explore the history from 1536 to the present day of the area from Clifford’s Fort (on which the Old Low Light Heritage Centre stands), along the coastal walkway, past the Black Middens, the Collingwood monument, to Prior’s Haven.

Martin, a popular speaker at the heritage centre, will focus first on the history of the Old Low Light, once one of a pair of leading lights guiding ships through the treacherous mouth of the River Tyne and Clifford’s Fort, built in the 17th century as a coastal defence against the Dutch.

From Clifford’s Fort, walkers can see the present-day station of Tynemouth RNLI but along the route Martin will point out the sites of earlier stations and will tell the story of how there were once two separate lifeboat organisations operating at the same time – the Tyne Lifeboat Institution and the RNLI.

Along the walk, he will explain the role of Lloyd’s Hailing Station, the remains of which can be seen from the fish quay beach, the Black Middens and some of the more well-known ships that were wrecked on these rocks, and the monument to Vice Admiral Lord Collingwood. A little further along is Prior’s Haven, which is near to Tynemouth Volunteer Life Brigade Watch House, built after one particular shipwreck.

He will then head back to the fish quay, stopping (operations allowing) at the current RNLI station, where for 16 years he was coxswain.