South West Piers - Simplon Postcards

The Grand Pier is privately-owned and is one of three piers in the town together with Birnbeck Pier, which stands derelict awaiting possible restoration and the much shorter SeaQuarium aquarium built towards the south end of the seafront. It is supported by 600 iron piles, and is 400 metres (1,300 ft) long. It was been seriously damaged by fire in 1930 and 2008. It is due to re-open in 2010 following rebuilding following the 2008 fire.

Work started on the pier in 1903, with P.Munroe acting as engineer, opening in June 1904. At the pier's end was a 2,000 seat theatre which was used as a music hall and for opera, stage plays and ballet. On 16 May 1907 an extension of the pier measuring 500 yards (1,500 ft) was opened, with the intention that the pier would be used for excursion steamers, to compete with the older Birnbeck Pier. Berthing at the pier was difficult, however, and the extension was later demolished.

The theatre was destroyed by fire on 13th January 1930. The pier was sold to Leonard Guy, who opened a �60,000 new pavilion three years later. This second pavilion housed a large undercover funfair in place of the theatre. The pier was sold again in 1946 to A.Brenner, who improved the pier's facilities with new shops and an amusement arcade in the early 1970s. The pier became a Grade II listed building in 1974 and it won the National Piers Society Pier of the Year award in 2001.

Brenner sold the pier in February 2008 to brother and sister partnership Kerry and Michelle Michael. The pier immediately underwent a multi-million-pound revamp. �1 million was spent installing a new go-kart track, a fully licenced bar, and a climbing wall into the pavilion. However at on 28 July 2008, a fire started in the pavilion. Avon Fire and Rescue Service deployed 13 fire engines, special appliances, and more than 85 fire fighters to tackle the blaze, but the building was soon destroyed.

Workmen began dismantling the wreckage in September 2008 and a design competition for the new pavilion was won by the Bristol-based Angus Meek Architects. On 7 December 2008 it was announced that a slowly rotating 91 metres (299 ft) tall observation tower was proposed along with the new building. It was hoped to re-open the pier in the summer of 2010, but it was not yet ready when I visited on 18th September 2010.

The grade II* listed Birnbeck Pier at Weston-super-Mare was designed by Eugenius Birch and opened in 1867. The gothic toll house and pierhead buildings were designed by local architect Hans Price. The pier is in need of extensive work and is closed to the public.

Birnbeck Pier is the only pier in the country which links the mainland to an island just off shore. A proposal in 1845 to link Birnbeck Island to the mainland at the western end of Worlebury Hill saw work start on a suspension bridge two years later. A strike by stone masons during which a storm damaged the little that had been built saw an end to that scheme.

A new proposal came in 1864 to form a company to build a pier across to the island. This was funded by 2,000 shares which raised �20,000. Cecil Hugh Smyth-Pigott, the four year old son of the lord of the manor, laid the foundation stone on 28 October 1864 when a public holiday was declared in the town and a celebratory dinner was held in the Town Hall.

The main pier is 1150 feet (351m) long and 20 feet (6m) wide. It has abutments at either end, making its construction more like a bridge than other pleasure piers. Fifteen groups of piles support a continuous lattice girder, each set comprising four piles screwed into the river bed at an angle with an X-brace between each adjacent pair. There were problems with oscillations in the structure when bands marched on the pier, both on the opening day and again in 1886, and so further horizontal cross braces were added to the piles. A landing jetty extended on the west side of the island to allow steamers to bring day trippers to Weston-super-Mare from ports on both the English and Welsh side of the Bristol Channel.

The pier opened on 6 June 1867. The toll to walk on the pier was 1d, but this was quickly raised to 2d and 120,000 people paid the toll in the first three months. A new wooden northern jetty was added in 1872 which allowed the removal of the original western landing place. Another jetty was added on the south west corner in 1898 which reached deep water even at low tide, thus allowing steamers to use the pier at all states of the tide. This was damaged in a gale in 1903, rebuilt in 1909 but closed in 1916. It was finally removed in 1923. The northern jetty had also been damaged in the 1903 storm but was replaced by the present steel structure in 1905.

A second pier, the Grand Pier, was opened in the centre of Weston-super-Mare in 1904. Although it was provided with a steamer landing it was seldom used due to difficult currents around the structure. Visitors to the town were able to catch an electric tram from the pier approach road at Birnbeck.

Many visitors arriving on the steamers never left the pier, instead they made use of the cafe, pavilion, amusements and funfair on Birnbeck Island, which is why the Grand Pier also tried to create a steamer landing stage. These were destroyed by fire on 26 December 1897 and replaced by the present buildings, although these have been altered over the years. An extension on iron supports along the south side of the island was opened in 1909 which allowed a larger area for the amusements. This was not built to the proper specifications so was demolished in 1912 but a larger concrete platform was constructed in 1932.

In 1941 the pier was taken over by the Admiralty as an outpost of the Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development (DMWD). It was commissioned as HMS Birnbeck and was used for secret weapons testing including the 'Bouncing bomb'.

In 1962 the Birnbeck Pier Company sold the pier to P & A Campbell, the steamer operators. After the withdrawal of their ships it was sold to John Critchley who redeveloped it as a 'Victorian pleasure centre' which even had special permission to issue its own currency to visitors. There have since been several proposals to make the pier a commercial success again, including converting it into a hotel, casino, residential use, or the centre of a marina.

The most successful steamer company serving the Bristol Channel was P & A Campbell's White Funnel fleet. Their operations were suspended during the Second World War but afterwards the number of passengers carried decreased with the availability of cheap foreign holidays and the opening on the Severn Bridge in the 1960s. Regular ferries ceased serving Birnbeck in 1971 and the final excursion called on 19 October 1979. The excursion vessels PS Waverley and MV Balmoral still operate in the Bristol Channel, but any calls at Weston are made by a connecting tender from Knightstone Harbour.