With fun rides, chips in newspaper, saucy postcards for sale and seagulls whirring overhead, piers are one of the reasons we do love to be beside the seaside – especially in the Year of the Pier
At the peak of the British seaside holiday the pier was an integral part of the resort experience. But with the advent of affordable foreign travel, resorts around the coast suffered and many piers became too expensive to maintain and were considered expendable.
In the late 1970s, when there was much talk of demolishing piers and re-thinking our resorts, Poet Laureate John Betjeman was among a group of people who spoke out in their defence. He was a founding member of the National Piers Society, a pier pressure group dedicated to celebrating the heritage and beauty of piers and campaigning for their future.
Now about 60 remain – down from about 100 at the peak – and they will be celebrated during a year-long initiative spear-headed the NPS and artist Nicky Thompson who has created a series of 12 artworks, each depicting an English pier, which will be on display around the country during the year.
‘I was contacted by Bangor Pier and asked to produce an artwork they could sell in the kiosk on the pier to help them raise funds,’ Nicky says. ‘In the end it was used on all sorts of merchandise.
‘I contacted the National Piers Society and suggested we could do something nationwide, they sent me a list of other piers and we now have a range of artworks celebrating 12 piers around the country.’
Naturally, Brighton Palace Pier, Eastbourne Pier and Worthing Pier are part of his collection, all former winners of the Pier of the Year award. Hastings Pier – known affectionately as the Plank by locals for its minimalist look after it was destroyed by a fire in October 2010 – sadly is not.
Nicky calls on his childhood love of piers when he creates his works for the NPS, whose patrons are Dame Joan Bakewell, Gyles Brandeth and actor Timothy West.
He surrounded himself with pictures and information about each individual pier and would start by creating a mood board. Nicky would then make a pen and pencil sketch before adding bold blocks of colour and the finishing touches – the seagulls, people, and details that make each location unique.
‘As a child of the 70s we went to Llandudno and I loved that time at the beach with bright lights, the noise and the sticks of rock,’ he says.
‘I very much look at the piers from the point of view of that seven-year-old – they are fun places and I’ve tried to capture the sense of a day at the seaside.
‘Piers are strange contradictions: people love them but don’t necessarily use them. I think they are starting to be rediscovered in the wake of Covid as people are spending more holidays in this country. Piers deserve to be cherished and I hope these artworks will encourage people to visit and appreciate their local pier more.’
And that’s a view echoed by seaside architecture expert Kathryn Ferry who lives in East Grinstead and got involved with the volunteer-run charity NPS after the bicentenary of Eugenius Birch, engineer of the West Pier, Eastbourne Pier and Hastings Pier who was born in 1818.
‘Piers have been a part of the backdrop of our lives by the coast since Victorian times and they are important landmarks.
‘At a time when people were able to go to Spain for their holidays, piers were seen as old fashioned but the people who came together to form the NPS recognised that they are as important as parish churches in their own way.
‘We’d like to use this year to encourage people to visit the piers on their own doorstep. They are a real selling points for resorts that have them and there has been a lot of investment, conservation and restoration in recent years. It feels like a positive time for piers.
‘People pay to go to stately homes and piers are important parts of our heritage as well, so why wouldn’t they visit piers? If their heritage and history can be celebrated then they do have a future.’
To find out more about the National Piers Society and the year of events they have planned, go to piers.org.uk and to see more of Nicky Thompson’s work, visit nickythompsonart.co.uk.
Nicky’s artwork is available to buy as a set of postcards. His original artworks will be on display at the West Pier Trust, Brighton in September 2023. He will create a special view of the West Pier to be the centrepiece of the exhibition.
Kathryn Ferry will be giving a Year of the Pier talk on 29 June, 2023 at the West Pier Centre about the exotic design of Victorian piers.
www.westpier.co.uk/events
READ MORE: 10 facts about Brighton Palace Pier
SUSSEX'S SURVIVING PIERS
Eastbourne Pier
The Grade II* listed 1000ft pier opened in 1870 and is currently owned by Sheikh Abid Gulzar of Lion Hotels.
Hastings Pier
The 910ft pier opened in 1872. It is Grade II listed and also owned by Sheikh Abid Gulzar who bought it for £60,000.
Worthing Pier
Always somewhat delicate too, and rather helpless in the face of nature’s elements, piers have long suffered at the hands of storm and fire and Worthing Pier, originally opened in 1862, has been no different. In 1913 the pier-head Southern Pavilion became marooned when the decking collapsed.
It was soon repaired and in 1926 the shoreward end pavilion was added, built in a style to complement the original Southern Pavilion. But in 1933 the Southern Pavilion burned down. This may, however, have been fortuitous in the long term because it allowed the prevailing Art Deco movement to stamp its mark on its replacement. The classic Southern Pavilion we see today opened in 1935 and a matching amusement arcade came two years later.
In wartime the pier had to close and it remained shut until 1949. After that, steamers started calling again and PS Waverley and MV Balmoral still moor up, although both ships are currently being refurbished and are temporarily out of service.
In 2014 local businessman Phil Duckett gave the Southern Pavilion a complete facelift while carefully conserving its original features and style, turning what had been a notorious nightclub into a widely admired multi-purpose venue. Today the pier is a Grade II listed building with Perch of the Pier – an iconic café from Alex Hole, managing director of The Perch in Lancing, opening at the end of pier after buying the Southern Pavilion freehold.
Bognor Regis Pier
The pier was initially 1000ft when it opened in 1865 but after storm damage and fires it is now only 350ft. The Grade II pier is owned by Bognor Pier Leisure Ltd.
SUSSEX'S LOST PIERS
Brighton Chain Pier
The 1134ft pier was opened in 1823 and visited by King William IV and painted by both Turner and Constable. Storm damage, neglect and the opening of the West Pier sent it into decline by the 1860s. It remained open until October 1896 when an engineer discovered the head was 6ft 9ins our of perpendicular. Two months later it was destroyed by a severe storm.
Brighton West Pier
It was 1115ft long when it opened in 1866, but the Grade 1 listed pier was destroyed by arson attacks, with it now being left derelict and almost gone.
St Leonards Pier
Opened in 1891, the 960ft-long pier was soon destroyed by rough seas. Bomb damage during WWII and fire mean that it was closed by 1951.
