June 2018 - Passion for Piers
Members of the Horndean & District U3A met for their regular monthly meeting on Friday 1st June 2018 at Merchistoun Hall. They were entertained by an interesting talk by Jackie Marsh-Hobbs about her "Passion for Piers" - looking at the history of pleasure piers.
Jackie has been interested in piers from a young age, spending lots of time on her local pier because her parents worked and were involved with it. Her passion showed in the telling of the story of how piers evolved over the years. The first piers were just landing stages where you could get on a boat. The very first 'pleasure pier' was opened on 26th July in1814 at Ryde and it was beautifully made of wood in the regency style. It has since has been rebuilt in iron and is much longer now.
The second pier to be built was in 1821 called the Trinity Chain Pier at Edinburgh designed by Capt Samuel Brown for George IV. The design of the chain pier looks rather like a bridge. It was 600 ft long and only 4ft wide! Following this Capt Brown was commissioned to build another chain pier in Brighton which was completed in 1823. This pier was much larger being 1130 ft x 14ft. It was built in Brighton because it doesn't have a harbour and this pier was built primarily as a landing stage. In 1830 six additional pleasure wooden piers were built, one of which was built at Herne Bay. This pier was impressive being 3630 ft long and was beautiful. Piers made it much easier to board boats and to take horses and carriages to travel abroad; especially where there were no natural harbours.
Worthing Pier was built in 1860 which was an elegant pier with all the beautiful metal work. It was an important decade for building piers with 21 new piers built using iron and all were very similar. Eugenius Birch introduced cast iron screw piles which had screws fitted into the end of the piles so that they were more securely secured into the seabed. Margate Pier was his first pier and the first one with fitted screws. It had a couple of kiosks at the neck of the pier and mainly the pier was used for promenading and as a landing stage.
Money to build the piers was raised locally all around the country. Local people would decide they wanted a pier, would set up a company, get an act of Parliament to build out over the sea, employ an engineer to draw up the plans and would sell shares locally to raise the money. There were about 100 piers built around our coastline with many more planned but it was a real challenge and the local people were unable to raise sufficient funds to build them all. Tolls to go on the piers were introduced from the beginning to help the local communities with the upkeep etc.
When Eastbourne pier opened it was only half built. There were big celebrations with banners, bands playing and lots of things going on. It was important to the local people because it was a community thing and they had invested their money. It was another pier by Eugenius Birch with the toll houses and kiosks designed in the oriental style. He was the first one to incorporate windshields to protect people sitting in the seats against the winds and it's said that there were up to 2,000 seats on the outside so that people could watch the promenaders. When it was completed two years later, they had an even bigger celebration. After 5 years there was a terrible storm which ripped up half the pier; it was rebuilt and the opening was again celebrated!
The pier at Clacton on Sea enabled people from London the pleasure of going on trips on steam boats. Wrought iron for the pier at Laidlow in Blackpool was shipped down from Glasgow as was the iron for piers along the south coast. Jackie showed many photographs of the beautifully decorated iron piers which the Victorians were so good at designing. Clacton Pier was enlarged in 1919/20's to 6 acres to include a vast number of amusements.
Herne Bay pier was rebuilt and it was over three thousand feet long. They installed iron rails in the decking to enable them to get the iron etc to the end of the pier and later it was used as for a baggage trolley. Piers got bigger and grander with Bognor Regis having a massive theatre built on it and it had to be reinforced.
The Palace Pier at Brighton was a typical seaside pier with lots of amusements. In 1910 they added the winter garden made of very decorative cast iron and glass. Piers were a great source of all kinds of diverse entertainment for the local communities and became a favourite place for swimmers and divers who developed shows for people to go along and watch.
Jackie spoke about and showed pictures of Southampton, Plymouth Hoe, Southsea, Lee on Solent, Weymouth, Isle of Wight, Worthing and Southend piers - many of which do not exist now. There are only about 58 piers remaining today; some successful but many in a poor state of repair. In 1979 Sir John Betjeman set up a successful National Pier Society to preserve piers and many are now listed. Jackie ended her talk by showing lots of photographs of existing piers. Southsea pier has been awarded "Pier of the Year" for 2018. You can find out more about Jackie's work at jackiemarsh-hobbs.co.uk. There were many more interesting stories and facts from Jackie about her passion for piers (too many to list here) and the members showed their appreciation for a thoroughly enjoyable talk.
Diane Stoner
Speaker Coordinator