Piers of the realm

It’s been a sad summer for our seaside piers. This week Fleetwood’s grand structure, the last of the golden age and built to rival its neighbour at Blackpool, caught fire and was half-destroyed. 

Verdict: probably vandals. If so, it’s an old story. The minute a pier falls into disrepair (as Fleetwood’s had) it becomes a magnet for  addicts, wastrels and hooligans, which in seaside towns are never in short supply. 

Fleetwood follows on from the agonising destruction last month by fire of Weston-super-Mare’s magnificent 104-year-old pier. The blaze, caused by a deep-fat chip pan, was catastrophic, consuming the structure. The pier was much loved: it had a hilarious ghost train and great dodgems. It now looks like a cremated millipede.  

Oddly, no one mentioned during the reports of its destruction Weston’s other pier, Birnbeck. A classic of its era (it opened in 1867) and the only pier in Britain to be joined to an island, it was once home to something creepy called the Department for Miscellaneous Weapon Development. Sadly, it is now dangerous and derelict, hanging on while plans are made for redevelopment.

The fact is our piers are vanishing. There were 101 seaside pleasure piers in 1900, 76 by 1945 and 55 in 2006 – a wastage rate of one pier every two years. With two gone in the past few weeks alone, you realise that a seaside tradition is dying. Is it possible we no longer care about them?

When you think about them, piers do seem rather pointless. Long wooden ramps sticking into choppy water, going nowhere. You walk out along them and then you, er, walk back again. 

But once you’ve experienced a pier as a small child, looking queasily down through the gaps between the planks to the green water slapping the rusting pillars a dizzyingly long way underneath, the excitement never quite leaves you. The piers, their funfairs, shell shops, shrieking gulls, candy floss and seaside tat are a potent part of a shared national childhood. 

Their rich history owes much to three things: the Georgians, a bunch of terrible hypochondriacs who believed that promenading by the seaside was good for you; the advent of railways, making seaside towns easily accessible; and the 1871 Bank Holiday Act, which created a new demand for a fun day out.

Piers were, of course, landing stages for steam boats (the first being built in 1814 at Ryde on the Isle of Wight) but in the Victorian age they came into their own as things of recreation. Suddenly every self-respecting seaside town had to have at least one pleasure pier. They were status symbols, great venues for brass bands, ceremonies and civic events. Plus piers were swanking platforms for promenaders, places to flirt, mince and be seen. The Victorians had a lot more sly fun than we credit.

But who is to thank for these ornate barnacled structures? The once famous and now forgotten engineer-architect Eugenius Birch (1818-1884), who in a frenzy of invention built 14 of the most magnificent piers in the land. 

He ushered in the golden age of pier building with the use of cast-iron screwpiles, on which most pier decks still stand, supporting pavilions and kiosks in rip-offs of the world’s most exotic architectural styles. Morecambe’s pier was known as the Taj Mahal of the North. But they were as bad as theatres when it came to catastrophe. Nearly all piers have been destroyed and rebuilt after catching fire or being cut in half by ships or swept away by storms or partially dismantled during the war. 

If you were going to salute any pier for courageous national service, then Southend’s has a terrific record. Run by the Navy in the war, it was the mustering point for thousands of convoys and its electric trams ferried the wounded up and down its 1.3-mile length, still the longest in the world. 

Neglect is the big killer. The most outrageous loss is Brighton’s West Pier, a domed beauty completed in 1866 to a design by Birch, who surpassed even his triumphs at Margate and Blackpool. In recent decades it has suffered abandonment, collapse, fire and storms. Once one of Europe’s most exquisite examples of coastal architecture, today it is just a sorry pile of starling-infested metal. It leaves the ravishing Clevedon pier in north Somerset as the only grade one listed pier in existance. 

A walk out into the sunset hand in hand with a loved on on any pier – especially Clevedon – is never forgotten.

Popularity is the key for their survival. It is usage, not interest from the heritage lobby, that will keep them going. On the Suffolk coast, Southwold pier is an encouraging example in that it is effectively a new pier, having been rebuilt and recently re-opened. It seems to be thriving once more.

If history matters to you, then piers are important. There still remains a great book to be written about end of pier entertainment, which ranges from the seaside smut of such performers as Roy Chubby Brown to the great orchestras and theatre stars of the past who would appear at Folkestone, Paignton and Blackpool’s piers, all of them once prestigious venues.

My favourite is Cromer pier, which in 1993 had its “neck” severed by a collision with a 100-ton rig, leaving its Pavilion Theatre stranded out at sea. Rebuilt, today it hosts an endearing Seaside Special (hurry, it ends September 20), the artistes gamely competing with the crash of the waves underneath the stage.

Piers are a wonderfully salty part of our island story. When you next visit one and put some coins in the converted mine invariably sitting at the entrance, don’t take it’s survival for granted.

THE SEASIDE TOP FIVE

Saltburn, Yorkshire

The bleakest, most northernly pier in England and the only one left in Yorkshire, it’s incredibly bracing and has an antique working tram at the entrance to take you up the steep cliff. 

Deal, Kent

Winner of the 2008 Pier Of The Year Award, it is England’s youngest pier (built in 1955) and the only one constructed since the war. It is known for its good fishing. 

Clevedon, Somerset 

Grade one listed, built in 1869, a true gem of gossamer beauty, completely uncluttered and sitting on the Bristol channel above the second highest tidal reach in the world. 

Penarth, near Cardiff

The poshest of the Welsh piers, lovingly restored in 1998. A port of call for the Waverley and Balmoral paddle steamers, the last of their kind. The fishing is free of charge. 

Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset

Britain’s shortest pier, a bit stubby perhaps but full of mid-Edwardian architectural elegance and it won’t wear your shoes out.