Established in the southwest of France in 1875, the Socoa tide gauge is part of the national sea level monitoring network in France. Through a data archaeology exercise, a large part of the records of this gauge in paper format have been rescued and digitized. The digitized data were processed and quality controlled to produce a uniform hourly sea level time series covering 1875 to the present day. This new dataset is important for climate research on sea level rise, tides, and storm surges.