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Just inland from the top of a precipitous Heritage Coast cliff near the village of Marcross in the Vale of Glamorgan there stands a small stone building with an almost semicircular stone flagged roof. One end of this building is completely open and faces the sea. It is yet another entity associated with shipping in the Bristol Channel.<\/p>\n
As the title of this article suggests the building, which was constructed in the 1870s, was used to house the apparatus that could fire a thin rope to any ship in distress close to the shore in these hazardous waterways. If the mariners on such a vessel were to successfully receive the initial rope, then they would haul to themselves a thicker rope to which would be attached a breeches buoy to enable their rescue.<\/p>\n Rocket Houses became an essential part of the infrastructure of being able to effect rescues close to, or indeed on, lee shores which would have otherwise proved difficult for the life boats of the time.<\/p>\n The UK Coastguard Rocket Stations were strategically located along the coast to cover areas with high risk of shipwrecks and to provide timely assistance. There is some evidence that there was such a rocket station adjacent to the Watch House at the entrance to Barry Old Harbour. The equipment and techniques used evolved over time, but the primary goal remained the same: to save lives at sea<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n MONKNASH COASTGUARD ROCKET HOUSE Just inland from the top of a precipitous Heritage Coast cliff near the village of Marcross in the Vale of Glamorgan there stands a small stone building with an almost semicircular stone flagged roof. One end of this building is completely open and faces the sea. It is yet another entity associated with shipping in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[228],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6cWjO-3Q3","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6814,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=6814","url_meta":{"origin":14759,"position":0},"title":"Ogmore to Monknash","author":"Alan Williams","date":"10th December 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Ogmore to Monknash We parked at Monknash and caught the No. 303 bus to Ogmore. We were to begin our walk just above the estuary of the river Ogmore and travel back along the Heritage coast to Monknash. Walking down to the car park we looked towards Porthcawl, heavy clouds\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Footsteps"","block_context":{"text":"Footsteps","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=38"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Picture15.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13559,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=13559","url_meta":{"origin":14759,"position":1},"title":"A SPECIAL DAY","author":"Alan Williams","date":"4th September 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0A Special Day \u00a0 A Special Day As regular readers will know I have missed the Saturday walks for quite a few weeks, but we were all together in mid-August to celebrate the wedding of Claire, the youngest member of our group. A few of us took short walks around\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Footsteps"","block_context":{"text":"Footsteps","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=38"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Picture9.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13739,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=13739","url_meta":{"origin":14759,"position":2},"title":"Crickhowell and \u00a0Llantwit Major","author":"Alan Williams","date":"1st November 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0Crickhowell A good start to this walk; as we drove over the mountains (through Beaufort for the views) to Crickhowell car park, we saw cloud inversions and the valley mist starting to rise. The walk route was undulating, we started with an uphill stretch along a road heading east out\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Footsteps"","block_context":{"text":"Footsteps","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=38"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Picture19.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":15670,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=15670","url_meta":{"origin":14759,"position":3},"title":"In Search of George and The Dragon","author":"Alan Williams","date":"2nd July 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"IN SEARCH OF GEORGE AND THE DRAGON With the Summer still here, walking in and around the Vale is as popular as ever. Whilst Valeways walks celebrate a 25th anniversary this year, the Visit the Vale website also provides details of a host of other opportunities to get out an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General Interest Articles"","block_context":{"text":"General Interest Articles","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=334"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Front-Cover-295x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13055,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=13055","url_meta":{"origin":14759,"position":4},"title":"Glamorgan Coast and Abercarn","author":"Alan Williams","date":"15th March 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0Glamorgan Coast We parked near the Plough and Harrow Inn and walked straight across a sodden field towards Broughton. We wended our way to Monkton and across farmland towards the coast. Some of the fields were muddy and we soon had great clarts of mud on our boots making our\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Footsteps"","block_context":{"text":"Footsteps","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=38"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/StLukes.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":606,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=606","url_meta":{"origin":14759,"position":5},"title":"Wenvoe Castle","author":"Alan Williams","date":"10th August 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Wenvoe has a castle which is over 600 years old; it is not really a typical castle but rather a very grand house with some architectural features which gave it the appearance of a castle. It is an important and historic building and something of which we can be proud.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Wenvoe History Group"","block_context":{"text":"Wenvoe History Group","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=40"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14759"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14761,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14759\/revisions\/14761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Picture10.png?resize=500%2C370\")
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