Wells Lifeboat and Station Tour

Guided Tours of Wells Lifeboat Station

We are an operational lifeboat station and, although we look forward to welcoming you, our crew and boats may be called out at any time of day or night. In the event of such an emergency, we trust you will understand your tour may be delayed, altered or cancelled, at short notice.

Tours must be pre-booked and will last approximately 50 minutes. On a typical tour you will learn the history and ethos of RNLI Wells Lifeboat Station; the work we do and the rescues we carry out; you will be given a guided tour of the boat hall and will be able to get up close to our Shannon class all weather lifeboat, 13-46 Duke of Edinburgh and our D class inshore lifeboat, D797 Peter Wilcox.

If you are visiting to see the name of a loved one on the Duke of Edinburgh lifeboat, please note it very much depends on where the name is situated as to whether you will be able to see it. Due to the height of the boat, names on the wheelhouse (roof) will not be visible or accessible but can be seen on a full-size replica. Names on the port and starboard sides may also be difficult to see and, again, these can be viewed on full size replicas of the decals. You can check where the name is located on the Launch a Memory website here

The format and content of the tours may vary, and we ask about the age of each attendee during the booking process, 0-9 years, 10-17 years or adult, so that we can tailor the content of each tour. Tours will start at the beginning of the slot booked, please feel free to arrive on site 10 minutes before the start time. There are informative materials to take away and souvenirs are available for purchase.

It is important to note that we ask you to provide a mobile phone number when booking so we can contact you at short notice in the event that a visit needs to be cancelled or re-scheduled.

Where to find us Wells Lifeboat Station is situated at the end of Beach Road in Wells next the Sea, NR23 1DR. There is parking available in the Holkham Estate’s Beach Road car park, parking charges apply for all vehicles (no blue badge exemptions) and details can be found at www.holkham.co.uk.

It is a one mile walk from the town quay and, during the visitor season, there is a regular shuttle bus, operated by the Holkham Estate, details can be found at www.holkham.co.uk

From the car park and bus stop there is a gently sloped footpath with handrail leading up to the coast path and the lifeboat station.

Our volunteer team wish to welcome everyone to our station and will make every reasonable effort to accommodate visitors with disabilities and special needs.

• Visitors are advised to wear flat soled footwear and to let us know in advance if they may need assistance with access
• The boathouse has a lift as well as stairs to access the viewing gallery
• Children must be accompanied and supervised at all times by responsible adults
• Dogs are not allowed to enter the boathouse except for assistance dogs which are welcome to accompany their owners
• Public toilets can be found very nearby in the Beach Road car park. There is no access to toilets at the lifeboat station
• We kindly request that visitors do not bring food or drinks, other than water into the lifeboat station

For more information on access or if you have any other questions, please get in touch with Lifeboat Visits Officer, John Tomlinson by email wellsvisits@rnli.org.uk

Please do not contact the lifeboat station by phone; it may be needed for emergency use.

We have a shop onsite and during the times it is open, you are welcome to visit and see the station and lifeboats from the viewing gallery. These visits do not require booking but please note that the boat and boat hall will not be accessible. You can check opening times for the shop on our Facebook page and website

Our Lifeboat

RNLI 13-46 Duke of Edinburgh is a Shannon class lifeboat. She is the third lifeboat in the "Launch a Memory" fundraising campaign and the first in England, and she will carry almost 15,000 names of supporters' loved ones in her decals.

You can learn more about the Shannon class lifeboats here.

Useful Information

There has been an RNLI lifeboat in Wells for 154 years and we moved into our new, purpose built, Shannon lifeboat house in October 2022.

We have been busy recruiting new volunteers to help us to deliver tours for our visitors. We hope you will understand that, to start with, we are limiting the number of tours to four per month, two on a Thursday and two on a Saturday, starting on 14th January 2023.

Water Safety

During your visit to Wells you may wish to take a walk on the beach. Before doing so, please look at the links below. Tidal cut off by beach goers can be a regular occurrence here. Help to avoid this by familiarizing yourself with the beach and please remember to be on the main part of the beach four hours before the Wells bar high tide.

Wells Water Safety-pdf

Sea Safety Advice - Wells-next-the-sea

Wells Bar Tide Times | Tide Times

Keep in touch

Your support saves lives, and we look forward to keeping in touch with you by post and phone, sharing our news, activities and appeals. When using Eventbrite we will collect your personal details in order to register and communicate with you about this event only.

If you would you like to receive more information from the RNLI you can register RNLI.org/preferences.

Even if you have received our communications in the past, we’ll make sure we honour the preferences you express here.

If you would rather not hear from us, or would like to change how we contact you, please get in touch. Just visit RNLI.org/preferences or call 0300 300 9990.

Privacy Notice:

We will always store your personal details securely, and they will only be used by the RNLI, RNLI Shop and RNLI College. Your data may also be used for analysis purposes, to help us provide the best service possible. We will only allow your information to be used by suppliers working on our behalf and we’ll only share it if required to do so by law.

For full details see our Privacy Policy at RNLI.org/PrivacyPolicy or contact our Supporter Experience Team on 0300 300 9990 (from the UK), 01 511 9836 (from Ireland) or +44 1202 663234 (from any other country).