Burry Port Lifeboat Station
| Inshore Lifeboats | |
|---|---|
| Launch Method | Carriage |
| Address | The Harbour, Burry Port, Carmarthenshire, SA16 0ER |
| Telephone | 01554 834991 |
Explore two centuries of RNLI lifeboat history, heroic rescues, and the enduring tradition of saving lives at sea.
On the Burry Inlet at the edge of Carmarthen Bay, Burry Port runs a fast Atlantic 85 and a D-class from the harbour, covering an estuary of shifting sands, fast tides and famous cockle beds in one of the windiest areas of Britain. The lifeboat service here traces back to 1852, through stations at Llanelli and Pembrey, returning as an inshore station in 1973.
The Burry Estuary is treacherous — one of the windiest stretches of the British coast, with the majority of nineteenth-century wrecks occurring in its western approaches. A lifeboat was first placed at Llanelli in 1852 by the Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners’ Royal Benevolent Society, passing to the RNLI in 1854.
The station was relocated as the sands shifted — to Pembrey Burrows in 1863, and then to Burry Port in 1887, where a large 12-oared lifeboat, the David Barclay of Tottenham, was placed in a new boathouse. The lifeboat was towed out on service by local tugs.
The all-weather station closed in 1914. As inshore lifeboats spread, the RNLI re-established a station at Burry Port in 1973 with a D-class; a B-class Atlantic followed, and a new station opened in September 2019. The station now runs an Atlantic 85 alongside the D-class, working the estuary’s fast tides, sandbanks and cockle grounds, where walkers and small craft are regularly caught out.
