Archive for the 'Piers' Category

Pier Review

Sunday, March 1st, 2015

We continued our pier-bothering this weekend: another short break saw us down the M40, M25, A23 and A27 to Worthing. We’d done all the closest piers, and it being February, south seemed like a good choice- and so it was, on Friday: glorious sunshine saw us without coats outside a seafront bar in brilliant sunshine. Sadly, Saturday saw rain, mist, and wind, and I’d forgotten to take the camera out on Friday, so the Pier’s art-deco amusement arcade only got a hurried pic in the rain:

Worthing Pier's amusement hall

Worthing Pier’s amusement hall

In addition to the amusement hall, the Southern Pavillion has been refurbished- nicely so- and houses a tearoom/music/wedding venue: they’ve done a great job of that, but their website’s a bit lacking- unlike the array of (mostly blues) acts they have on.

Generally, the pier is in quite good shape: while we were there, decking was being replaced, which is nice to see, after the horrors of Colwyn Bay. Nice to see a council-owned pier being maintained, and busy, and making money.

On to the town itself: walk from our hotel in the east towards town along the seafront and it’s looking affluent and a bit la-di-dah, but elsewhere, like most places, it varies; we had an excellent Turkish meal in an area that, in politician-speak, would be described as “vibrant” (to be fair, the dark, wet evening didn’t do it any favours, but the meal was fantastic).

As you’d expect in the south, prices were a bit high in some places: north of 11 quid for a pint and a large wine give me a bit of a shock, but this was a seafront bistro/bar- back in the “vibrant” end of town it was just over six quid at the architecturally wonderful, but slightly rough Grand Victorian Hotel. Generally, I liked the town a lot.

Pier Pressure

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2014

We’ve been off to North Wales- precisely LLandudno, for a few days. This was mostly a weekend away just to get away, but there was an ulterior motive; more piers.

The first, a visit on the way, was Colwyn Bay Victoria. It’s been totally shut since 2008, with a chequered history, and is now , frankly, in an awful state. There’s been the traditional fires in 1922 and 1933, with rebuilding, some highly dubious modifications while owned by THF, and a 1976 threat of demolition that was thwarted with a petition, followed by a further one in 1987. The full history can be found here at the NPS site, and also here at the site victoriapier.com, a site owned by Steve Hunt, with whom the story gets odd, rather than just the normal sad decline and abuse.
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Flat

Saturday, September 20th, 2014

We’ve been away on holiday: Sutton-on-Sea, Lincolnshire- another part of the country we’d not been to together and not since childhood: I’m unable to remember when, and my better half visited sometime in the early 80s. I didn’t fancy the long drive to Scotland, as we’d been there once this year, so it was time to go east again, but a bit further north this time.

The drive is short in miles- around 130- but even in good conditions, it’s 3 hours, as a good proportion is single carriageway, you have to skirt several towns, and, at the far end, Lincolnshire’s minor roads become narrow and twisty, with plenty of hazards (horses, cyclists, pedestrians, big fuck-off tractors and caravans- of these, the last two seemingly regarding both sides of the road as usable), so pushing on is not an option.

Sutton itself is a small town, and fairly sleepy, but with a nice beach, wide prom that’s also a cycleway:

Sutton Beachfront

Sutton Beachfront

Just north lies Mabelthorpe, a bit larger, and further south the bright lights and caravan parks of Skegness, with it’s (sadly truncated, but still pleasant) pier.

While Skeggy’s pier is short at 118m:

Skegness Pier: previously around 4 times as long

Skegness Pier: previously around 4 times as long

Cleethorpes’ pier is even more so at 102m.

Cleethorpes Pier- also a quarter of original length.

Cleethorpes Pier- also a quarter of original length.

Both were once much longer, but WW2 and storms saw to that. While they look a bit sad as they were once very long (to accommodate the large tidal range), it was nice to get a couple more piers seen, particularly ones still open and in good nick.

We also managed a visit to Gumby Hall, and met Craig the Norwegian Forest Cat:

Craig

Craig

as well as some good food and drink.

Blackpool

Monday, August 18th, 2014

Our ongoing pier to pier network continues, and we were considering Worthing or Penarth, but I didn’t fancy the drive round the M25 for Worthing, and I’m likely to take a business trip to Cardiff early next year, which hopefully I’ll be able to sideline a trip to Penarth into, so where to go?

Llandudno’s pier is nice, but we’ve been there a few times, although not for a while. Colwyn Bay? The town was seriously grim last time I visited, and the pier is both in a shocking state, under dispute of ownership, and under threat of demolition, and therefore closed. A real shame, it could be beautiful, but even if the town was nicer, the pier is nicely cut off from town by the North Wales Expressway.

We decided on a combination of high pier count, and not too long a drive (so I thought, see later), and a bit of seaside trashiness: Blackpool.
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Pier to Pier

Tuesday, April 29th, 2014

We decided to pop away for a weekend, but other appointments kept us at home on Saturday, and needed us back on Tuesday, so just one night away. This meant somewhere reasonably close by, so Weston-super-Mare it was. The resort’s been a popular visit for West Midlanders for years, to the level that the local rag gets published in the town.

My last visit was sometime around 1996, when we drove in looking for lunch, didn’t like the look of it much, and drove out again. The one before that was a day trip sometime in the 1970s, on a coach, when I were but a lad.

Since then the prom has been done up, and the pier has had a disastrous fire and amazing rebirth.

It now looks great, and despite the Tripadvisor whingers, well worth the £1 entry fee:

The Grand Pier

The Grand Pier

As a fan of English seaside, it’s nice to see a pier in such good conditiion, unlike the Birnbeck Pier, a short morning walk just up the coast, undergoing emergency repairs by the looks of it, with the lifeboat station in temporary accomodation on the seafront. The pier is in a shocking condition, pictures here, and 2 Urbex reports here (2011) and here (2007), showing the rapid deterioration.

Birnback Pier: just look at the corroded support bracing.

Birnback Pier: just look at the corroded support bracing.

I like piers: love them, which makes this list sad reading, and a good proportion of this list distrubing too- just look at this site, for example.

That made our diversion on the way home the next day all the better: Clevedon Pier also has a chequered past, having suffered partial collapse, but has been restored and is now both in great shape and grade 1 listed:

Clevedon Pier in all its beauty.

Clevedon Pier in all its beauty.

with lovely cast-iron fittings. It’s small, and there’s no amusements (just a tea room), and it costs more that Weston’s Grand, but it’s a structure of beauty, and an example of what can be done. Which seaside pier next?

Southport

Sunday, March 2nd, 2014

I decided we deserved a weekend away, so we went to Southport. Somewhere we’d always meant to go, and having had a reccomendation from friends (“It’s very Victorian, you’ll like it”) we departed.

It’s surprisingly close: 2 hours, a hundred or so miles, and yes, it is very Victorian. The rather splendid Lord St is lovely, and the Pier is fine- the second longest in the UK, and as the longest is the admittedly long, but dull, Southend, it’s Southport FTW, as there’s a bar at the end, for a start.

One building caught my eye from the pier: this lovely, huge Victorian pile of an ex-hospital:

Tho old Southport Promenade Hospital, Now Marine Gate Mansions.

Tho old Southport Promenade Hospital, Now Marine Gate Mansions.

which is now appartments, with a half-million pound price tag(PDF, 1.2MB).

Southport is a oddly laid out place: the pier bridges a lake between the town and the sea, and the actual seafront has a retail park (where our hotel was), which presumably is the type we’ll soon have in Walsall, with a cinema, and a large selection of crappy chain restaurants:

Share and enjoy: crappy chain restaurants and a cinema: seems inexplicably popular.

Share and enjoy: crappy chain restaurants and a cinema: seems inexplicably popular.

I don’t know if the land is reclaimed, but it’s odd: the promenade is some way back: you’d imagine the hotels and pubs would be on the front, not a modern retail park.

We had a fabulous meal, a few drinks, and a bit of a stroll: one to revisit with more time, the town is affluent, but not up itself, architecturally good (mostly), and a blend of seaside and town.

Bournemouth

Thursday, April 4th, 2013

I was back in Bournemouth Network Monkeying again recently- 4 years on, the town has declined a bit, but there’s still good restaurants and a couple of decent pubs. This time, the weather was mostly cold, but Easter Sunday was stunningly bright, and felt like we might see a spring, maybe: the only snow there was on the trucks colleagues took down, so returning to WS9 was a bit of a shock, with snow still on the ground.

Even with the decline, and the seafront drinkers at 8am, I like Bournemouth: it’s a proper town, but also has the seaside- a nice beach, a pier. Bugger me, the drink’s expensive though.

Deal

Sunday, May 29th, 2011

As mentioned, we’ve been away to Deal in Kent. It’s a nice town: small, but big enough to have shops. Nice enough to not be full of pound shops, but not up it’s own arse. A decent (if shingle) beach, a pier, restaurants and pubs, and a railway station make it a good base. There’s also a lot of pubs, some of which we visited.

It made a nice change, and for us struck that elusive balance: It’s nicer than Walsall, with decent shops (and a decent balance of small individual ones and normal shops, without there being a delicatessen selling nothing but olives), but not too la-di-dah for us proles.

The cottage was, unusually, Friday-Friday, so after braving the M25 etc, including the Dartford crossing (which seems to work clockwise, but not anti-clockwise), we found ourselves on a seafront, drinking beer, by 4:30pm on a Friday in glorious sunshine.

In between pubs, we fitted in some sightseeing: Dover, Deal, and Walmer castles, Sandwich, Worth, Hearne Bay (nice), Whitsable (a bit twee for me), Margate (somewhat shabby).

It’s a lovely part of the country. Pictures to follow…

Saarfend

Friday, July 31st, 2009

We’ve come away for a couple of days to Saarfend Southend, though we opted to stay near Rochford at the Cherry Tree pub. It wasn’t a bad drive down, considering M1 & M25 were involved, and we started agreeable with lunch, then a walk and a attempt to get the train into Saarfend. I say ‘attempt’, as there was a strike on, but they’d neglected to say so on the ticket machine. Ho Hum. Taxi, again.

We went for a walk up the Pier, which is indeed long, but otherwise unremarkable, and then a wander to a few pubs: The Borough Hotel, the Cornucopia, The Castle, and a decent Chinese meal (unlike anywhere near home, as a rule, and then a taxi back for the night).

The next day saw us back in town for a stroll: Head out towards Westcliff and the town get less tatty, and the glorious sunshine helped. A foew more pubs: The Esplanade, The Borough Hotel again, a walk in and back out of the Wetherspoons, and back again to Rochford.

More pubs: The Kings Head, the Horse and Groom (food!), and the Golden Lion.

Southend itself is fairly typical seaside: some rough bits, some nice bits. It’s a big town too, so it has the attributes of one.

One thing I couldn’t believe: Blokes in pork-pie hats. I though that was a stereotype, but no, they exist.

Eastbourne

Monday, September 17th, 2007

We’re in Eastbourne. It’s quite nice, though nearby Hastings is a bit shabby. So far we’ve had nice food and drink in Sovereign Harbour, Beer on the Pier, and a walk around Eastbourne yesterday, and a drive out to Hastings and Bexhill today. There’s nowhere near as many old people as you might imagine, and the Sovereign Harbour development is refreshingly free of oh-so-trendy types.

🙂