A lifetime of Islands: July 2019

Conister Rock or St Mary's Isle is located at the southern end of Douglas Bay about 300 metres from the promenade. It doesn't really qualify as an island, as the rocks are completely covered at high spring tides, but I am including it because it has a building on it, which is known as the Tower of Refuge. Conister Rock was a notorious hazard to shipping before and even after the Tower of Refuge was built on it. The name Conister is a corruption of the Manx Kione y sker, meaning "end or head of the reef".

Sir William Hillary moved to the Isle of Man in 1808 and made his home at Fort Anne overlooking Douglas Bay. In 1824 he founded the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (it was initially called the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck). The first lifeboat to be built was stationed at Douglas.

On 19th November 1830 the packet steamer St George arrived in Douglas, having sailed from Liverpool with passengers and mail. Having unloaded her passengers and the mail she anchored close to Conister Rock for the night. There was a storm during the night and the St George hit the rock and filled with water. Her captain - Lieutenant John Tudor sent out distress signals. The event was witnessed by Sir William Hillary from his home at Fort Anne. He immediately went down to the pier and with Lieutenant Robinson, William Corlett, Isaac Vondy and a crew of 14 volunteers he set out in a lifeboat to rescue the crew of the St George. The lifeboat was damaged during the rescue attempt and at one point 4 of the men in it were swept overboard. They managed to get back into the lifeboat and after another two hours the 22 crew members of the St George managed to get into the lifeboat. Then the lifeboat was washed on to the rock and swamped. All 40 men were eventually rescued by 2 more boats that has put out from the pier.

The Tower of Refuge was built by Sir William Hillary in 1832, as a warning to ships of the rock's presence at high tide and to act as a place of refuge in the event of there being another shipwreck here. The Tower of Refuge was designed to look like a medieval castle, with castellations and corbels. by local architect John Welch. The cost of the tower was £254, a proportion of which was given by Sir William Hillary, the rest coming from the harbour commission and private individuals.

Even after the construction of the Tower of Refuge, ships continued to run aground on Conister Rock: in 1867 the schooner Thomas Parker was driven onto the rock during a storm and in 1830 the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company's ship RMS Mona ran aground on it.

I arrived in Douglas at 6am on the overnight ferry from Heysham. The sun was shining and there was a low spring tide at 07:19am. Most of the websites that I had found in advance of my visit implied that it is only possible to walk out to Conister Rock a couple of times a year when the spring tides are exceptionally low. Low tide on the day I visited was 0.5 metres, which wasn't the lowest it could be but my walk out was largely clear of water (there were a couple of ankle deep channels of water to walk through). The main problem was the very slippery seaweed, particularly the kelp. At the times of the year with the lowest spring tides charity walks out to the Tower of Refuge are sometimes organised and hundreds of people take part but I had the rock and the tower to myself.

The tower has an open archway on its west side. Inside the archway is a stone staircase which leads up to the upper level. At the time of my visit the upper level was covered in scaffolding poles. It is not possible to climb up the central tower.