Cowes View Coastguard Cottage

History of the Cottage

1851 the year of the great exhibition with much activity in Hyde Park it would be easy to forget the seaside village of Hill Head . For many a smuggler the areas around Hill Head provided safe landing for there casks of brandy and bales of tobacco. Of course the parson had his payoff of brandy and baccy would go to the clerks. Mostly done secretly but not always . Tax revenues in Southampton and Portsmouth were compromised and so Preventative officers usually Royal Navy personnel retired were stationed at these cottages to stem the flow of contraband.

Years later when the smuggling abaited the inhabitants became coastguards who aided seafaring folk, the name remains sewn to these eight cottages.