Teignmouth wrote:

Thanks Colin,

Looking at the Google street view, the location at Solent clearly does not
receive free flowing air from all directions so, if the wind is blowing
from behind the house with sunshine from the front of the house, the
temperature will be artificially high & I don't know how the Met Office
can accept it as an official site.

As an ex-Coastguard Officer I would hazard a guess and say that the Met
Office actually put the station there, as they did at many constantly
manned stations.
They would pay us, in the days before automation, a small sum for each set
of observations, which was divided between us just before Christmas, along
with the money we received from Lloyds Register for shipping reports.

My first Coastguard Station was at Banff, which was a climatological
reporting station. We didn't get paid by the Met Office but by the
Department of the Environment, who wanted the rainfall figures and the
Banff and Buchan Tourist Organisation who wanted the sunshine totals.
Our readings were also entered in the local paper each week.

We had a Stevenson screen with wet, dry, min and max thermometers, a 5"
rain gauge and a Campbell Stokes sunshine recorder. No wind speed or
direction indicators (other than the Coastguard ensign), which would have
been of the most use to us as Coastguards :-)
Occasionally a person from the Met Office in Edinburgh would visit and make
sure the screen was well-maintained and that the instruments were working
properly.
--
MCC