Dover Lifeboat Station

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Dover Lifeboat Station is in Dover, Kent, at New Marina Curve, facing Calais across the Strait. The town is a major ferry port, and the RNLI’s Dover station currently houses a Severn-class all-weather lifeboat, 17-09 City of London II (ON 1220), which has been on station since 1997.

The Dover lifeboat service began in 1837 with the Dover Humane and Shipwreck Institution. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) took over management in 1855. In the 1800s a series of boats and buildings were used, including a self-righting 37-foot lifeboat with sails and oars, and later a 28-foot oar-powered vessel. A boathouse was built at the Western Docks in 1866, and a clock tower followed in 1877. When work began on the Dover Harbour of Refuge in 1893, the clock tower was moved and the lifeboat house was replaced.

During World War I, the station closed in 1914 and reopened in 1919 with a steam lifeboat, James Stevens No. 3. It operated briefly and closed again in 1922. In 1929 a new boathouse opened in the Eastern Docks at Camber, and a faster lifeboat, Sir William Hillary, arrived in 1930 with twin petrol engines. This boat served until World War II, when the station closed again; the post-war operation resumed in 1947 at the East Docks.

In the 1980s, Dover’s ferry expansion led to another move, this time to Tug Haven in the inner harbour. A new station was built on Cross Wall Quay in the late 1990s, completed in 2000 with help from the RNLI, and opened in August 2001. As part of the Port of Dover Western Docks redevelopment, the lifeboat station moved again to the New Marina Curve, giving faster access to open water. The building was designed by Studio 4 with eco-friendly features such as a Glulam timber frame, ground source heating, and solar panels. The official move to the new site was completed in 2024, with the opening held on 22 June 2024.

Dover crews have earned 19 RNLI medals for bravery—6 silver and 13 bronze—with the last medal awarded in 1998.