Sir Peter Scott Lighthouse in Sutton Bridge is up for sale

Published: 15:00, 03 November 2018

One of South Holland's most iconic structures is up for sale.

Sir Peter Scott Lighthouse or East Bank Lighthouse, on the banks of the Nene at Sutton Bridge and the former home of world-renowned conservationist, Sir Peter Scott, is being sold by Doug and Sue Hilton, who have owned it since 2010.

After buying the lighthouse for just over £300,000, Doug admits they are selling it with a heavy heart, but that it is time to move on.

"Leaving it is a real wrench." said Doug, who lives in Shoreham, Kent. "It is like Bilbo Baggins' ring - when you put it on, you don't want to take if off again. The only thing that makes us is the hope that someone can take it further.

"We have rebuilt the outside and inside; we have built the goose pens and fencing. We are now stuck and are effectively keeping it from people now because of the situation.

"We visit it and open it from time to time for people. We will give any help we can to the new owner. It would be lovely if a national organisation would take it on, but they do not get the grants they used to."

Doug and Sue fell in love with the lighthouse the moment they saw it. Doug recalled: "Sue saw the lighthouse advertised in the paper on a Friday and said it was for sale, but I was more concerned about our business following the 2008 crash and whether we could keep that going.

"But we went to see it on the Saturday, committed to buying it on the Monday after we pulled together the money and collected the keys three weeks later!

"The hair went up on the back of my neck when I learned it was the former home of Sir Peter Scott, someone so important in history and in conservation. We couldn't afford it, but we said we must see it."

The lighthouse was in the ownership of Commander David Joel, who lived in Hampshire and had been a friend of Sir Peter Scott.

It was in a sad condition, with collapsed ceilings, missing floors, broken windows, much of the render cracked off and gaping holes in the roofs.

He restored the lighthouse, taking care to preserve original parts of the fabric wherever possible, where others may just have renewed. He also formed ponds to the side, where Peter Scott’s first wildfowl pools had been and stocked them with a wide variety of wildfowl that include of course, ‘snow geese’, immortalised in Paul Gallico's story, The Snow Goose.

Doug and Sue are in no rush to sell the lighthouse and insist that it will only be sold to 'the right buyer'. They are moving to Wales, to be closer to their children and five grandchildren.

Sir Peter Scott Lighthouse by the river Nene at Sutton Bridge at dusk.

When Sue and Doug Hilton bought the Sir Peter Scott lighthouse, their original plan was to create a 'green gateway to the Fens'.

They obtained planning permission for a visitor centre and with their love of conservation and the environment, hoped to create a facility for education and tourism.

But the inclement weather of late 2010 and early 2011 put paid to those best-laid plans.

Persistent heavy rain in the autumn penetrated the render on the lighthouse, then icy conditions in early 2011 meant the damp under the render froze and levered the outer layer from the brickwork.

The structure was covered in scaffolding for the rest of the year at a cost of between £60,000 and £70,000 - funds which had been earmarked for the development of the visitor centre. And that was before the cost of repairs.

But out of misfortune came a product which has now been used in building conservation across the world - a potassium silicate mineral paint, containing ground quartz, which, when added to render melts the sand and binds together, creating air holes much smaller and finer than within regular render and making the building considerably more resistant to bad weather. The finely-crushed quartz in the paint also gives the lighthouse its distinctive, ethereal white shimmer as the sunlight is reflected from its walls.

"There is so much potential here," said Doug. "We have created a gallery and museum space and would love to see the visitor centre built. "The important thing is to let people see it. We have rescued it and we love it to bits, but we have now got to move on."

As well as the visitor centre, potential projects include the maintainance of Scott's wildfowl ponds and the laying of the tracks from a 'Lincs potato train', which was previously used by farmers to brings the heavy spuds in from the fields - its second purpose after being laid behind the trenches on the Western Front.

"There's nothing to bring people to this part of the Fens and this is the chance to create a 'green gateway' and get people out," said Doug. "Sir Peter Scott has global appeal."

'Desolate, utterly lonely and made lonelier by the calls and cries of the wildfowl that make their homes in the marshlands and saltings’.

from The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico

Sir Peter Scott came from illustrious stock - he was the only child of Robert Falcon Scott - Scott of the Antarctic and sculptor Kathleen Bruce.

However, Sir Peter was just two when his father perished while on expedition, returning from the South Pole in 1912.

In the event of his death, his father asked Scott's mother to "make the boy interested in natural history if you can; it is better than games." and while Scott was a highly talented sportsman, winning a bronze medal in sailing at the 1936 Olympics, and an excellent artist, it was the natural world which truly captured his soul.

The blue plaque dedicated to Sir Peter Scott on the lighthouse.

He came across the East Bank Lighthouse by chance in 1933 , making it his home and developing his love of wildlife, particularly wildfowl, becoming the world's most influential naturalist and conservationist, founding the World Wildlife Fund and the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust.

Inspired by his friend, the American journalist Paul Gallico wrote ‘The Snow Goose’ - the emotionally powerful and romantic wildlife fiction book, later made into a film.

Scott stayed at the lighthouse, creating ponds for the incoming geese, until 1939, when he was called up to serve in the Second World War. The Army requisitioned the lighthouse in his absence and due to the desperate need for farmland, by the end of the war, the sea walls had been pushed half a mile seaward.

Without the free-flowing tidal pools and saltings, Scott could not keep on his wildfowl collection and broken-hearted, vowed he could not return.

After a lifetime of popularising the study of wildfowl and wetlands through TV, books and art, Sir Peter was knighted in 1973. He died in 1989, aged 79.