Lifeboat memorials are a distinctive category of late-modern and contemporary monumentality deserving of further research and investigation. My main previous discussion of them relate to:
- a fully land-locked context of the National Memorial Arboretum where the RNLI memorial is a particularly striking example evoking the shores and coasts of Britain and commemorating historic lifeboat rescue material cultures and a sculpture.
- the specific case of Grace Darling’s commemoration.
The coasts of Britain are replete with memorials to tragic losses of life at sea and the dedication and bravery of RNLI crews. I recently encountered a further example worthy of consideration because of its location, form, subject and biography. The memorial is situated on the west side of Cemlyn Bay on land cared for by the National Trust and the North Wales Wildlife Trust. The precise position beside the path, with vistas over land and sea, and close to the former location of the 19th-century lifeboat house to the north beside the beach and other 19th-buildings to the south.
The memorial commemorates the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the first lifeboat on the Isle of Anglesey in 1828. It was erected in 1978 as a cenotaphic form – a mound. Atop the mound is a rectangular base of cobbles set in concrete is a vertical rectangular stone. Fixed to the west-face of the upright stone is a black-marble plaque with a bilingual inscription. Notably, given the looming form of the nuclear power station across the bay on Wylfa head, the power station invested in its renovation in 1998.
CODWYD Y GOFEB HON
I DDATHLU
CAN MLWYDD A HANNER
SEFYDLU A LANSIO’R
BD-ACHUB CYNTAF AR
YNYS MON
1828 – 1978
SEFYDLWYD GAN Y PARCH. JAMES WILLIAMS
A FRANCES WILLIAMS
ERECTED TO COMMEMORATE
THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH
ANNIVERSARY OF ESTABLISHING
AND LAUNCHING THE FIRST
LIFE BOAT
ON THE ISLE OF ANGLESEY
1828 – 1978
ESTABLISHED BY THE REV. JAMES WILLIAMS
AND FRANCES WILLIAMS
(RENOVATED BY WYLFA POWER STATION, JUNE 1998)
The location is as important as the form: the association with the coast and the coastal path might seen self-evident, but the proximity to the now-lost traces of a former lifeboat house is central. The memorial’s renovation enforces a connection to the landscape and the dominant presence of the nuclear power plant. More than both these points, I was struck but the prehistoric and early medieval allusions of the memorial’s form – evocating other nationally prominent monuments including the Pillar of Eliseg and the memorial to Llyweylyn ap Gruffudd near Builth Wells.
Archaeo𝔡𝔢𝔞𝔱𝔥 