Former coastguard station, depicted on the 1st edition 6" Ordnance Survey County Series map. {1} The coastguard station at Gibraltar Point was built by the Admiralty in 1859. Whilst the coastguard service was intially established to tackle smuggling, its role had largely changed to helping ships and mariners in danger by this time, and the station at Gibraltar Point functioned more as a lighthouse and rescue service from the start. The Gibraltar Point station was a detachment from the larger Skegness station, and was initally staffed by three single men from Skegness, each doing an 8 hour shift on watch. It later changed to become a station permanently occupied by a married man and his family. The station was initially laid out around a central living room, with a boathouse and three small bedroms to the north, and the lookout tower to the south-east. A small kitchen was to the west of the living room, with a locker room to the east. The last coastguards left in 1925, with the building being leased to be used as a holiday home after this. Extensions to the building during this time added a larger lounge room to the north-east of the tower. The lease for the building expired in 1958, and the structure was subsequently bought by what was then Lindsey County Council, who leased it to the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust to use as a field school for the expanding Gibraltar Point Nature Reserve. The building was altered and substantially extended a number of times over the next 50 years, to add accommodation for the field school students and staff, and to add a visitor centre facility. Extensive damage was caused to the nature reserve and field school in December 2013, when storm surges caused large scale flooding across Lincolnshire. The decision was subsequently taken to demolish all of the more recent extensions to the building, and repair the former coastguard station rooms. The building is now (2018) used as meeting and lecture rooms, and as an exhibition space. {2}