This Saturday morning (7th February, 2009) saw the arrival of the Hoylake lifeboat (The Lady of Hilbre) at her new home in the recently constructed state-of-the-art station.

A decent crowd of on-lookers, amateur photographers and would-be local blog publishers (that’ll be me then!) turned out to welcome the boat and her crew on a bright, cool morning. Some of crew came in first, towed by the tractor followed by the boat itself. After the machines and boat had a good hose down the boat was slowly pulled in to her new home.

It’s worthy of mention just how welcoming the volunteer crew are; the station was open and members of the public had a great opportunity to take stacks of close-up photos and ask questions of some of the crew.

Shame of course to leave the old station behind, having been a home to boats and crews for around 200 years. What will become of the old building when the final bits and pieces are removed? I understand that the building is owned by Peel Holdings (Port of Liverpool owners).

I took quite a few photographs, as did many others. Here’s just a sample:

We walked around to the new lifeboat station last Saturday afternoon (1st November) to watch the official opening at 2pm. Tried to stress to our two young daughters that they were actually watching a significant event in Hoylake’s local history !

The invited guests were gathered inside the temporary fencing and a fair sized crowd had gathered outside too. Live music was provided by the Port Sunlight Lyceum Brass Band.

After the official opening by our local MP Stephen Hesford, all were invited inside the brand new building for a look around and slice of cake.

I understand that the transfer from the current station to the new one will be completed over the next few weeks. It’ll be good to see this fine new building being put to good use soon!

The photos I took of the ceremony aren’t great but I’ll get around to loading them anyways.