FORMER ROCKET HOUSE

FORMER ROCKET HOUSE, BATH TERRACE

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1396399
Date first listed:: 06-Jan-2011
List Entry Name:: FORMER ROCKET HOUSE
Statutory Address:: FORMER ROCKET HOUSE, BATH TERRACE

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1396399
Date first listed:: 06-Jan-2011
List Entry Name:: FORMER ROCKET HOUSE
Statutory Address 1:: FORMER ROCKET HOUSE, BATH TERRACE

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: FORMER ROCKET HOUSE, BATH TERRACE

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Northumberland (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Blyth
National Grid Reference:: NZ 32030 81299

Reasons for Designation

This volunteer life brigade rocket house dating from the second half of the C19 is designated for the following principal reasons:

* Group Value: it has group value with the Grade II listed Blyth Highlight, forming an important pair of sea control and rescue features

* Historic Interest: as an example of the important Victorian approach to safety at sea which established Volunteer Life Brigades around the coast of England.

* Intactness: a largely intact example of a detached rocket house and look-out

* Rarity: despite having been built in their hundreds around the coast, rocket houses are rare survivals nationally

Details

1395/0/10007 BATH TERRACE 06-JAN-11 (Northeast,off) FORMER ROCKET HOUSE

II Rocket house and look-out, later C19

MATERIALS: rubble sandstone with ashlar and red-brick dressings and a slate roof.

PLAN: rectangular building with rocket shed on ground floor and first floor look-out over the North Sea

EXTERIOR: this is a tall, square two-storey building with a pitched roof and the lower courses of a rear gable chimney stack; a metal flue pierces the roof at the eastern corner. Main (west) elevation facing Bath Terrace is rendered and has an arched cart entrance on the ground floor with original double wooden doors and a stone surround, and a pair of tall rectangular first floor openings. The right return has two ground floor windows and a single, centrally placed, first floor window; the left return has a first floor doorway, formerly reached by an external stone stairway, now removed, and a single ground floor opening. The rear (east) elevation has a large first floor window opening and a single inserted ground floor opening. All openings (except those on the rear elevation) have red brick surrounds and flat arches and windows have projecting stone sills.

INTERIOR: the ground floor is divided by a stone wall into two compartments; the narrower right room is entered through an original opening and has an inserted later dividing wall. The large left compartment which housed the cart containing the rescue equipment, has the remains of a small heath and flue in one corner and a timber ladder stair giving access to the upper floor through a plank and batten door. The first floor is a large open space, boarded to dado level, with the remains of a stove in one corner and a cupboard above the stair. Windows are boarded, but that on the north east side overlooking the North Sea is large and has a timber window frame; this is considered to have functioned as a lookout. The first floor doorway has an original door with bolts and coat hooks attached. Original gas light fixtures are present in the ceiling which were superseded by a later electricity supply. The ceiling is of unpainted timber boarding.

HISTORY: map evidence indicates that this building was constructed between c. 1860 and c. 1897. Around 500 Volunteer Life Brigades were established around the coast of the British Isles in the second half of the C19. Their role was to assist the coast guard in saving lives from shipwreck on the foreshore by means of a rocket apparatus and Breeches buoy. Facilities often comprised a watch house, a shelter for the volunteers and storage, usually in the form of a shed, for the rocket apparatus. They supplemented the work of the lifeboats which saved life at sea. The first to be established anywhere in the country was that at Tynemouth in 1865 following public concern over the loss of life from a ship wrecked in the mouth of the river the previous year. Elsewhere in the north east, Cullercoats was established in 1865 while South Shields followed a year later, Seaton Sluice in 1876 and Sunderland in 1877. Only those at Sunderland, South Shields and Tynemouth remain in use, working as Auxiliary Coast Guards. It is thought that the rocket house played a role in the rescue of a Norwegian bark called the Haabet which had run aground at Cambois, near Blyth during the Great Storm of 1901. In total fifteen ships were wrecked on the Northumberland coast and forty four lives were lost during the Storm.

SOURCES Smith, J, Coastguard Stations (English Heritage, unpublished report, 2009) Tolan-Smith, C, North east Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment (NERCZA), (unpublished report for ARS Ltd, 2008) 147-8 www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/nercza-final-report-text/ Accessed on 15 September 2010 www.tomorrows-history.com/projects/PD0100010001/Great%20Storm%20index.htm accessed on 15 September 2010

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: This volunteer life brigade rocket house dating from the second half of the C19 is recommended for designation for the following principal reasons: * Group Value: it has group value with the Grade II listed Blyth Highlight, forming an important pair of sea control and rescue features * Historic Interest: as an example of the important Victorian approach to safety at sea which established Volunteer Life Brigades around the coast of England. * Intactness: a largely intact example of a simple rocket house and look-out * Rarity: despite having been built in their hundreds around the coast, rocket houses are rare survivals nationally and only a handful of listed examples are known.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 509115
Legacy System:: LBS

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.