Hartland Weather Station - March 1983 to December 1988

Weather reporting from Hartland starts up

15 March 1983 - Coastguards transferred their permanent watch keeping staff to a new station at RAF Hartland 50° 59'N 04° 28'W NGR SS 273242 142m above msl and commenced observing from that site the same day.

Although the Met Office refers to the weather station as Hartland Station, the community and Coastguard know the Coastguard Station as Eastdown, Hartland

The site

The RAF camp consisted of mainly single storey buildings surrounded by open land. The ground sloped gently downwards from south to north.

Sites for instruments were selected in advance, including that for a cloud searchlight. This was to be on ground owned by Mr P May, Elmtree Hartland. However by December 1982 negotiations with the landowner had been stopped due to concerns about security from vandals. The searchlight would instead be sited to the rear of a Coastguard house in the village - a secure site.

After much delay, the cloud searchlight was installed in May 1986(in the garden of the "White House"), 697m from the Coastguard building.

The years of action

The May 1983 Inspection assessed the station as good, though noting the cloud searchlight had not yet been installed.

In June 1983, the Coastguards were advised of the new rate of pay at Hartland. Though still including payment for relay of reports from Lundy, the total showed a decrease due to the absence of state of sea reports now that the station had moved inland.

The July 1984 Inspection station assessment was "very good", June 1985 was "good",June 1986 was "good", July 1987 "very good".

Hartland Coastguard closes and the Met equipment is removed

On 14th November 1988 the Met Office was informed that Hartland Coastguard would close on 6 December 1988, and all staff would be removed by 11 December. The Met Office sent a letter to the station asking for any coastguards staying in the area to consider continuing an observation programme, and a response was received from Mr R Needham which eventually led to the opening of the station at Gawlish.

14 December 1988 A visit to the "now defunct site at Hartland Vilage". All removable instruments taken to Met Office Chivenor, leaving anemometer pole and dials and other items to be disconnected by Camborne technicians.

Camborne technicians removed the equipment from Hartland Coastguard station on 21 December 1988 and the piece of land on which the cloud searchlight stood was disposed of to the adjoining landowner in October 1989 by PSA.