Welcome to The Fogbell
A micro museum on the Ribble estuary, telling the stories of life along the coast & of saving lives along the coast.
about the fogbell
History
On 26th January 1869, 7 Marshside men walked out across the Ribble estuary with their nets to catch shrimps. Whilst out a dense fog descended on them. They became disoriented and unable to find their way back to shore, were drowned on the flooding tide. A fund was set up to help their dependants and a timber fogbell building was constructed on the shore to help prevent a similar disaster occurring.
In 1896 a new fogbell building was constructed in brick on the current site. The last time the fogbell was rung in anger as it were, was in 1945 when local shrimper Tom “Bet” Wright failed to return home as a thick fog descended. The fogbell was rung to try to help him find his way to shore. A 15 year old boy called John Wright heard the bell and cycled to the fogbell to find out who was in danger. The bell ringer was starting to tire and John offered to take over. He rang the bell for a further 8 hours until Tom returned safely.
The current building was also used to hold the meetings of the Marshside Fishermens Provident Association and a separate room at the rear housed meteorological equipment. Between the final years of the 1890s until weather recording stopped there in 1956 a visit would be made each day to take measurements from the instruments and record them in a log book.
The black and white photograph here shows the original timber fogbell building on the shore at Marshside.
Restoration
As members of the fishermens association retired, the fogbell building became disused and eventually the local authority as land lords, bricked up the doors and windows to prevent vandalism.
Local groups had campaigned for many years to have the fogbell restored as a community heritage asset, but to no avail. In 2018, NW Heritage agreed to take on the task and through the cooperation and assistance provided by the then owners , One Vision Housing, in 2021 the fogbell was finally acquired by NW Heritage CIC. A survey of the building was carried out and a fundraising campaign was set up to carry out restoration works. Unfortunately we were struggling to raise sufficient funds to carry out the extensive restoration works required. However, One Vision Housing stepped in and generously donated some building materials for the project while FJ Gibb funeral directors of Southport agreed to provide much of the funding that has enabled us to get the restoration to where we are now. The works that commenced in January 2023 will now continue as funds permit. Since then, the roof has sustained damage due to bad weather and needed to be stripped and rebuilt. In 2023 we hope to get the outside of the building repointed and start on the restoration of the room next to the fogbell, the weather station!
All the works required and the ongoing maintenance is only possible due to a combination of donations received and the dedication of our team of contractors and volunteers. We are so grateful for all those who have donated so far to help the long dreamed of aims become a reality. We are currently compiling a list of all known donors in order to thank each and every one who has helped us on this journey. If you would like to help with the restoration and upkeep of this iconic local building, please consider making a donation via our GoFundme page here:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-restore-the-marshside-fog-bell-building
If you would like to support our work at The Fogbell by purchasing some of our merchandise, please see the merchandise section of the website for details.
Historic England Everyday Heritage Grant
In 2022 NW Heritage CIC applied for a grant from Historic England. Titled “Everyday Heritage: Celebrating Working Class Histories”, the grants aim to help communities to tell the stories of otherwise overlooked local heritage assets. We are extremely grateful to Historic England for awarding us funding at The Fogbell. We have used this funding to increase our public engagement, to tell the stories of life along the coast and of saving lives along the coast. This has been achieved through the NW Heritage team working with schools and community organisations to co create material to display both on site and online. As a result, we held our first public open day and display on site on 28th October 2023. The display costs were met by the Historic England funding as was the creation of this website, Material from the open day display will also feature here, at thefogbell.online. If you or your organisation would like to be involved and have any information or photographs that somehow have a link to “life along the coast, saving lives along the coast”please get in touch! The fogbell is a community heritage asset and
as such we want the local communities to tell us their stories and histories of life along this historic coastline. The website is very much in its infancy and as a work in progress will be added to on a regular basis.
If you would like to see more details on Historic Englands Everyday Heritage grants, they can be found here:
NW Heritage - who are we?
NW Heritage is a community heritage organisation dedicated to bringing communities closer to their heritage. In 2020 NW Heritage became a community interest company. The NW Heritage team are involved with several projects across the region, such as:
- The archaeological excavations at Lathom, west Lancashire. Here stood the palace fortress of Sir Thomas Stanley, first Earl of Derby and stepfather of King Henry VII.
- The “Hidden Gems of North Meols”. The Fogbell is just one of the three hidden gems that the NW Heritage team help care for. The others being the Scarisbrick Mausoleum at Crossens, a beautiful grade II listed building and probably the finest example of Neo Romanesque architecture in the north of England. The NW Heritage team helps the “Friends of Scarisbrick Mausoleum” to maintain and clean the building as well as organising public open days. The other hidden gem is the village stocks adjacent to St Cuthberts church at Churchtown. The stocks are also a grade II listed building and were recently restored by members of the NW Heritage team.
- Other recent community heritage projects our team have been involved in include the recovery of the Junkers 88 bomber from Banks Marsh by the Lancashire Aircraft Investigation Team, the Museum of Liverpool Pier Masters Green excavation at Albert Dock, providing assistance to staff and students of LJMU, providing training, mentorship and placements to students from University of Liverpool, as well as the carrying out of various surveys and research on heritage sites across the region.
- NW Heritage are very grateful to all those who have volunteered to raise awareness of the fogbell or otherwise furthered the project. Shown with Paul Sherman of NW Heritage (2nd left) are Dave Walshe, Gladys Armstrong and Michelle Rushton, pictured on 26th January 2022, the anniversary of the Marshside calamity.
