Southend Pier
Encyclopedia
Southend Pier is a major landmark in Southend-on-Sea
. Extending 1.34 miles (2.2 km) into the Thames Estuary
, it is the longest pleasure pier
in the world. Sir John Betjeman
once said that "the Pier is Southend, Southend is the Pier". The pier is a Grade II listed building.
. At the time, it was thought that spending time by the sea was good for one's health, and since it was close to the capital, many London
ers would come to Southend for this reason. However the coast at Southend consists of large mudflat
s, so the sea is never very deep even at full tide (between four and six metres), and recedes over a mile from the beach at low tide. Large boats were unable to stop at Southend near to the beach and no boats at all were able to stop at low tide. This meant that many potential visitors would travel past Southend and go to Margate
, or other resorts where docking facilities were better.
In order to counter this trend local dignitaries pushed for a pier to be built. This would allow boats to reach Southend at all tides. The campaign was led by former Lord Mayor of the City of London Sir William Heygate
, a resident of Southend. In 1829, Parliament passed an act giving authorisation for the construction of a pier at Southend. When Sir William brought the news back from London he was mobbed by enthusiastic crowds.
piles. However this was still too short to be usable at low tide, so by 1833 it had been extended to three times its length and by 1848 was the longest pier in Europe at 7000 feet (2,133.6 m). It was sold by the original owners for £17,000 in 1846 after getting into financial difficulties.
By the 1850s the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway
had reached Southend, and with it a great influx of visitors from east London. The many visitors took their toll on the wooden pier and in 1873 it was sold to the local board (the local government in place at the time).
In 1877 the board decided to replace the pier with a new iron pier. Part of the wooden structure of the old pier was used in the construction of a new mayoral chair in 1892.
The pier was designed by James Brunlees
, who had built the first iron pier at Southport
in 1860. Work began in early 1887 and the new pier was opened to the public that summer, though it wasn't completed until 1889 at a cost of almost £70,000. It was an immediate success, so much so that demand outstripped the capabilities of the pier and a further extension was proposed. This extension was completed in November 1897 and formally opened the following January.
In 1892 Southend became a Municipal Borough and received an unofficial coat of arms. This depicted a three-masted ship on top of a shield showing an image of the pier, the church of St Mary the Virgin, a well in Prittlewell and the emblem of Essex county. The motto was 'forti nihil difficile', 'to the brave nothing is too difficult'. This coat of arms was replaced in 1915 after Southend was given County Borough status and an image of the pier is no longer included.
An upper deck was added to the pierhead in 1907, and the pier was further extended in 1927. The construction work was undertaken by Peter Lind & Company who are still trading today. The work was carried out to accommodate larger steamboats. It was formally opened on 8 July 1929 by Prince George, Duke of Kent
. This part of the pier was named the Prince George Extension.
On 27 June 1931 the Pier was the scene of a tragic accident. Ernest Turner fell from, and was run over by, one of the electric trams on the railway and was killed instantly. Turner, who was 38, was one of a party of over 500 workers and family members on the annual works outing from Ansell's brewery in Birmingham
, where he worked as a brewer's drayman
. The party had arrived at the pier having travelled down the River Thames
from Tower Pier in London
where they had arrived earlier that day. At the inquest, which was held two days later, the jury returned a verdict of accidental death.
The Pier's centenary was celebrated on 23 July 1935, rather than 1930, as this date reflects the date the Admiralty
began to include Southend Pier on their navigation charts.
, Southend Pier was taken over by the Royal Navy and was renamed (along with the surrounding area) HMS Westcliff. It was closed to the public from 9 September 1939.
Its purpose in the war was twofold. Firstly it served as a mustering point for convoys. Over the course of the war 3,367 convoys, comprising 84,297 vessels departed from HMS Westcliff. Secondly, it was Naval Control for the Thames Estuary
. Notable in its career was the accidental sinking of the Liberty ship
SS Richard Montgomery
which, still containing several thousand tons of explosives, is visible from the North Kent coast and Southend beach at low tide, and continues to pose a threat to navigation over 60 years later.
In 1945 the pier reopened for visitors. Visitor numbers exceeded their pre-war levels, peaking at 5.75 million in 1949-1950. In the 1950s, more attractions on the pier opened including the Dolphin Cafe, Sun Deck Theatre, the Solarium Cafe and a Hall of Mirrors.
However the success was not to last. In 1959 a fire destroyed the pavilion located at the shore end of the pier. Over 500 people were trapped on the other side of the fire and had to be rescued by boat.
The pavilion was replaced by a ten-pin bowling alley in 1962, however by then British holidaymakers were turning to package holiday
s abroad. The use of the pier slowly began to decline and with it the structure began to deteriorate. In 1971, after a child was injured on the pier, a survey was undertaken and over the course of the next decade repairs had to be made including much of the replacement of the pier walkway.
In 1976 a fire destroyed much of the pier head. The massive blaze was battled by fire fighters working on the pier and from boats, and even using a crop-spraying
light aircraft
. The following year the bowling alley was damaged in another fire, and a year after that, the railway was deemed unsafe and had to be closed.
In 1980 the council announced that the pier was to close. Protests led the council to allow the pier to remain open until a solution could be found. This happened in 1983 when the Historic Buildings Committee gave a grant to allow repairs to be made. The work commenced in 1984 and was completed eighteen months later, when The Princess Anne
named the two new pier trains (commissioned to replace trains scrapped in 1982) after Sir John Betjeman and Sir William Heygate. The total cost of the repair including new buildings and pier trains was £1.3 million.
However on June 20 in that year, the MV Kingsabbey crashed into the pier, severing the new pier head from the rest of the pier, destroying the boathouse used by the lifeboat service and causing major structural damage due to the destruction of iron piles and supporting girders. This left a 70-foot gap in the pier. While this was temporarily bridged to restore access, full repairs were not completed until 1989.
On June 7, 1995, the bowling alley burnt down. Fortunately, the pier museum and railway station were not severely damaged and access to the pier was reinstated three weeks later, with all the debris cleared in time for the summer of 1996.
Much of the wooden planking was destroyed, but the main iron structure was largely undamaged. Heat from the fire was so intense that the Pier Railway tracks buckled and trains can now only run to within approx. 15m of the old station.
The fire was thought to have started in the pub at around 10:45pm, but due to the extreme location and the damage (several buildings collapsed into the water), the cause has not yet been formally determined, although it is being treated as an accident No one was injured, but fire-fighters encountered difficulties extinguishing the blaze as, due to the low tide, pumps installed on the pier were rendered ineffective. The Southend lifeboat crew were deployed to transport the first firefighters to the scene.
The pier reopened to the public on 1 December for the first time since the fire.
The pierhead station was destroyed in the blaze so a replacement with two platforms has been constructed to take the pier trains as close as possible to the area where the blaze took place.Access to the pierhead and RNLI gift shop and boathouse is now available walking past the temporary toilets and onto the area of restored pier after the earlier fire.
The pleasure steamers Waverley and Kingswear Castle are able to take and drop off passengers once more from the pierhead and autumn 2006 saw the tall ship Kershones visit again.
Shortly after the fire, pieces of charred pier planking have turned up for sale on eBay
with the proceeds apparently going to the RNLI.
In recent years Southend Council has invested in the pier to restore it as a visitor attraction. Funding for this has been coordinated by the "S-SHAPE" (Southend Seafront, High-street And Pier Enhancements) project with funding coming from European Objective 2 funding and National Government regeneration schemes.
The pier head was extensively redeveloped in 2000 creating a new sun deck and, in partnership with the RNLI, a new lifeboat station was built. The new station is constructed in glass to give a strikingly modern style. It also houses a museum and giftshop relating to the history of the RNLI and lifeboats.
In 2003 the shoreward end of the pier was redeveloped in a similar style to the pier head. The pier bridge was raised to enable taller vehicles to pass under it (a recurring problem had been double decker buses getting stuck under the bridge) and a visitor centre/tourist information centre was built. This connected with the new Cliff Lift and redevelopment of Pier Hill that was constructed the following year.
The company's winning entry was a design called Sculpted by Wind and Wave and was chosen from
73 international and local entries. The contest was run by the Landscape Institute
for the Council.
The pier railway runs the length of Southend Pier, providing public passenger transport from the shore to the pier head. It operates every day the pier is open, providing a quarter or half hourly service.
The original wooden pier built in 1830 employed a horse tramway to convey goods and visitors to the pier head. In 1890, with the construction of the iron pier, Cromptons installed an electric tramway. By 1891 the line ran the then full length of the pier and carriages were in use. The system expanded, until eventually, by 1930, four trains, each made up of seven carriages, were running on a double track. In 1949 the rolling stock was replaced with four new trains.
In 1978 the electric railway closed, due to deterioration and the cost of repairs. It was reopened on 2 May 1986 using two new diesel trains on a simplified single track with a passing loop. Pier Head station was temporarily resited due to the fire in late 2005, until a new, modern structure was opened on the original site in September 2009.
and a smaller D class lifeboat
, both of which are launched by davit
into the deep water adjoining the pier. The boathouse is a modern structure, which incorporates crew accommodation and offices, an RNLI shop, and a viewing gallery from which visitors can view the lifeboats. It is topped by a sun deck to which the public have access. Lifeboat crews use an electric buggy, complete with sirens and blue flashing lights, to access this boathouse along the pier from the shore.
A lifeboat has been stationed on the pier since 1879. Initially lifeboats were launched using davits, much as they are today. However in 1935, a new lifeboat house was erected at the pier head that provided a slipway for launching the lifeboat. This lasted until 1986, when the collision of the Kingsabbey with the pier destroyed the boathouse. A temporary boathouse was used until 2002, when the current boathouse opened.
Southend-on-Sea
Southend-on-Sea is a unitary authority area, town, and seaside resort in Essex, England. The district has Borough status, and comprises the towns of Chalkwell, Eastwood, Leigh-on-Sea, North Shoebury, Prittlewell, Shoeburyness, Southchurch, Thorpe Bay, and Westcliff-on-Sea. The district is situated...
. Extending 1.34 miles (2.2 km) into the Thames Estuary
Thames Estuary
The Thames Mouth is the estuary in which the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea.It is not easy to define the limits of the estuary, although physically the head of Sea Reach, near Canvey Island on the Essex shore is probably the western boundary...
, it is the longest pleasure pier
Pier
A pier is a raised structure, including bridge and building supports and walkways, over water, typically supported by widely spread piles or pillars...
in the world. Sir John Betjeman
John Betjeman
Sir John Betjeman, CBE was an English poet, writer and broadcaster who described himself in Who's Who as a "poet and hack".He was a founding member of the Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture...
once said that "the Pier is Southend, Southend is the Pier". The pier is a Grade II listed building.
Creation
In the early 19th century, Southend was growing as a seaside holiday resortResort
A resort is a place used for relaxation or recreation, attracting visitors for holidays or vacations. Resorts are places, towns or sometimes commercial establishment operated by a single company....
. At the time, it was thought that spending time by the sea was good for one's health, and since it was close to the capital, many London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
ers would come to Southend for this reason. However the coast at Southend consists of large mudflat
Mudflat
Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats, are coastal wetlands that form when mud is deposited by tides or rivers. They are found in sheltered areas such as bays, bayous, lagoons, and estuaries. Mudflats may be viewed geologically as exposed layers of bay mud, resulting from deposition of...
s, so the sea is never very deep even at full tide (between four and six metres), and recedes over a mile from the beach at low tide. Large boats were unable to stop at Southend near to the beach and no boats at all were able to stop at low tide. This meant that many potential visitors would travel past Southend and go to Margate
Margate
-Demography:As of the 2001 UK census, Margate had a population of 40,386.The ethnicity of the town was 97.1% white, 1.0% mixed race, 0.5% black, 0.8% Asian, 0.6% Chinese or other ethnicity....
, or other resorts where docking facilities were better.
In order to counter this trend local dignitaries pushed for a pier to be built. This would allow boats to reach Southend at all tides. The campaign was led by former Lord Mayor of the City of London Sir William Heygate
Heygate Baronets
The Heygate Baronetcy, of Southend in the County of Essex, is a title in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 30 September 1831 for William Heygate, Lord Mayor of London from 1822 to 1823 and Member of Parliament for Sudbury from 1818 to 1826. The second Baronet married Marianne...
, a resident of Southend. In 1829, Parliament passed an act giving authorisation for the construction of a pier at Southend. When Sir William brought the news back from London he was mobbed by enthusiastic crowds.
Wooden pier
Soon after authorisation was granted in 1829, the Lord Mayor of London laid the first foundations for the pier. By June 1830 a 600 feet (182.9 m) wooden pier was opened, based on oakOak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
piles. However this was still too short to be usable at low tide, so by 1833 it had been extended to three times its length and by 1848 was the longest pier in Europe at 7000 feet (2,133.6 m). It was sold by the original owners for £17,000 in 1846 after getting into financial difficulties.
By the 1850s the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway
London, Tilbury and Southend Railway
The London, Tilbury and Southend Railway is an English railway line linking Fenchurch Street railway station in the City of London with northeast London and the entire length of the northern Thames Gateway area of southern Essex. It is currently known as the Essex Thameside Route by Network Rail...
had reached Southend, and with it a great influx of visitors from east London. The many visitors took their toll on the wooden pier and in 1873 it was sold to the local board (the local government in place at the time).
In 1877 the board decided to replace the pier with a new iron pier. Part of the wooden structure of the old pier was used in the construction of a new mayoral chair in 1892.
Iron pier
James Brunlees
Sir James Brunlees was a Scottish civil engineer. He was born in Kelso in the Scottish Borders in 1816.In 1850, Brunlees worked on the Londonderry and Coleraine Railway...
, who had built the first iron pier at Southport
Southport
Southport is a seaside town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. During the 2001 census Southport was recorded as having a population of 90,336, making it the eleventh most populous settlement in North West England...
in 1860. Work began in early 1887 and the new pier was opened to the public that summer, though it wasn't completed until 1889 at a cost of almost £70,000. It was an immediate success, so much so that demand outstripped the capabilities of the pier and a further extension was proposed. This extension was completed in November 1897 and formally opened the following January.
In 1892 Southend became a Municipal Borough and received an unofficial coat of arms. This depicted a three-masted ship on top of a shield showing an image of the pier, the church of St Mary the Virgin, a well in Prittlewell and the emblem of Essex county. The motto was 'forti nihil difficile', 'to the brave nothing is too difficult'. This coat of arms was replaced in 1915 after Southend was given County Borough status and an image of the pier is no longer included.
An upper deck was added to the pierhead in 1907, and the pier was further extended in 1927. The construction work was undertaken by Peter Lind & Company who are still trading today. The work was carried out to accommodate larger steamboats. It was formally opened on 8 July 1929 by Prince George, Duke of Kent
Prince George, Duke of Kent
Prince George, Duke of Kent was a member of the British Royal Family, the fourth son of George V and Mary of Teck, and younger brother of Edward VIII and George VI...
. This part of the pier was named the Prince George Extension.
On 27 June 1931 the Pier was the scene of a tragic accident. Ernest Turner fell from, and was run over by, one of the electric trams on the railway and was killed instantly. Turner, who was 38, was one of a party of over 500 workers and family members on the annual works outing from Ansell's brewery in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, where he worked as a brewer's drayman
Drayman
A drayman was historically the driver of a dray, a low, flat-bed wagon without sides, pulled generally by horses or mules that were used for transport of all kinds of goods. Now the term is really only used for brewery delivery men, even though routine horse-drawn deliveries are almost entirely...
. The party had arrived at the pier having travelled down the River Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
from Tower Pier in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
where they had arrived earlier that day. At the inquest, which was held two days later, the jury returned a verdict of accidental death.
The Pier's centenary was celebrated on 23 July 1935, rather than 1930, as this date reflects the date the Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
began to include Southend Pier on their navigation charts.
HMS Westcliff
During World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Southend Pier was taken over by the Royal Navy and was renamed (along with the surrounding area) HMS Westcliff. It was closed to the public from 9 September 1939.
Its purpose in the war was twofold. Firstly it served as a mustering point for convoys. Over the course of the war 3,367 convoys, comprising 84,297 vessels departed from HMS Westcliff. Secondly, it was Naval Control for the Thames Estuary
Thames Estuary
The Thames Mouth is the estuary in which the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea.It is not easy to define the limits of the estuary, although physically the head of Sea Reach, near Canvey Island on the Essex shore is probably the western boundary...
. Notable in its career was the accidental sinking of the Liberty ship
Liberty ship
Liberty ships were cargo ships built in the United States during World War II. Though British in conception, they were adapted by the U.S. as they were cheap and quick to build, and came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. Based on vessels ordered by Britain to replace ships torpedoed by...
SS Richard Montgomery
SS Richard Montgomery
SS Richard Montgomery was an American Liberty ship built during World War II, one of the 2,710 used to carry cargo during the war. The ship was wrecked off the Nore in the Thames Estuary in 1944 with around 1,400 tons of explosives on board, which continue to be a hazard to the area.-History:The...
which, still containing several thousand tons of explosives, is visible from the North Kent coast and Southend beach at low tide, and continues to pose a threat to navigation over 60 years later.
Post-war history
However the success was not to last. In 1959 a fire destroyed the pavilion located at the shore end of the pier. Over 500 people were trapped on the other side of the fire and had to be rescued by boat.
The pavilion was replaced by a ten-pin bowling alley in 1962, however by then British holidaymakers were turning to package holiday
Package holiday
A package holiday or package tour consists of transport and accommodation advertised and sold together by a vendor known as a tour operator. Other services may be provided like a rental car, activities or outings during the holiday. Transport can be via charter airline to a foreign country...
s abroad. The use of the pier slowly began to decline and with it the structure began to deteriorate. In 1971, after a child was injured on the pier, a survey was undertaken and over the course of the next decade repairs had to be made including much of the replacement of the pier walkway.
In 1976 a fire destroyed much of the pier head. The massive blaze was battled by fire fighters working on the pier and from boats, and even using a crop-spraying
Pesticide
Pesticides are substances or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling or mitigating any pest.A pesticide may be a chemical unicycle, biological agent , antimicrobial, disinfectant or device used against any pest...
light aircraft
Light aircraft
A light aircraft is an aircraft that has a maximum gross take-off weight of or less.Many aircraft used commercially for freight, sightseeing, photography and scheduled flights are light aircraft.Examples of light aircraft include:...
. The following year the bowling alley was damaged in another fire, and a year after that, the railway was deemed unsafe and had to be closed.
In 1980 the council announced that the pier was to close. Protests led the council to allow the pier to remain open until a solution could be found. This happened in 1983 when the Historic Buildings Committee gave a grant to allow repairs to be made. The work commenced in 1984 and was completed eighteen months later, when The Princess Anne
Anne, Princess Royal
Princess Anne, Princess Royal , is the only daughter of Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...
named the two new pier trains (commissioned to replace trains scrapped in 1982) after Sir John Betjeman and Sir William Heygate. The total cost of the repair including new buildings and pier trains was £1.3 million.
However on June 20 in that year, the MV Kingsabbey crashed into the pier, severing the new pier head from the rest of the pier, destroying the boathouse used by the lifeboat service and causing major structural damage due to the destruction of iron piles and supporting girders. This left a 70-foot gap in the pier. While this was temporarily bridged to restore access, full repairs were not completed until 1989.
On June 7, 1995, the bowling alley burnt down. Fortunately, the pier museum and railway station were not severely damaged and access to the pier was reinstated three weeks later, with all the debris cleared in time for the summer of 1996.
2005 fire
On 9 October 2005 a fire severely damaged much of the Old Pier Head including the railway station, pub, shell shop, snack bar and ice-cream shop.Much of the wooden planking was destroyed, but the main iron structure was largely undamaged. Heat from the fire was so intense that the Pier Railway tracks buckled and trains can now only run to within approx. 15m of the old station.
The fire was thought to have started in the pub at around 10:45pm, but due to the extreme location and the damage (several buildings collapsed into the water), the cause has not yet been formally determined, although it is being treated as an accident No one was injured, but fire-fighters encountered difficulties extinguishing the blaze as, due to the low tide, pumps installed on the pier were rendered ineffective. The Southend lifeboat crew were deployed to transport the first firefighters to the scene.
The pier reopened to the public on 1 December for the first time since the fire.
The pierhead station was destroyed in the blaze so a replacement with two platforms has been constructed to take the pier trains as close as possible to the area where the blaze took place.Access to the pierhead and RNLI gift shop and boathouse is now available walking past the temporary toilets and onto the area of restored pier after the earlier fire.
The pleasure steamers Waverley and Kingswear Castle are able to take and drop off passengers once more from the pierhead and autumn 2006 saw the tall ship Kershones visit again.
Shortly after the fire, pieces of charred pier planking have turned up for sale on eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
with the proceeds apparently going to the RNLI.
21st century
The pier head was extensively redeveloped in 2000 creating a new sun deck and, in partnership with the RNLI, a new lifeboat station was built. The new station is constructed in glass to give a strikingly modern style. It also houses a museum and giftshop relating to the history of the RNLI and lifeboats.
In 2003 the shoreward end of the pier was redeveloped in a similar style to the pier head. The pier bridge was raised to enable taller vehicles to pass under it (a recurring problem had been double decker buses getting stuck under the bridge) and a visitor centre/tourist information centre was built. This connected with the new Cliff Lift and redevelopment of Pier Hill that was constructed the following year.
Design competition
On 15 September 2009, Southend Borough Council announced the winner of a design contest for a new pier head - a Sweden-based architecture firm, White Arkitekter.The company's winning entry was a design called Sculpted by Wind and Wave and was chosen from
73 international and local entries. The contest was run by the Landscape Institute
Landscape Institute
The Landscape Institute is a British professional body for landscape architects. Founded in 1929 as the Institute of Landscape Architects, it was granted a Royal Charter in 1997. The Institute aims to promote landscape architecture, and to regulate the profession with a code of conduct that...
for the Council.
Railway
The pier railway runs the length of Southend Pier, providing public passenger transport from the shore to the pier head. It operates every day the pier is open, providing a quarter or half hourly service.
The original wooden pier built in 1830 employed a horse tramway to convey goods and visitors to the pier head. In 1890, with the construction of the iron pier, Cromptons installed an electric tramway. By 1891 the line ran the then full length of the pier and carriages were in use. The system expanded, until eventually, by 1930, four trains, each made up of seven carriages, were running on a double track. In 1949 the rolling stock was replaced with four new trains.
In 1978 the electric railway closed, due to deterioration and the cost of repairs. It was reopened on 2 May 1986 using two new diesel trains on a simplified single track with a passing loop. Pier Head station was temporarily resited due to the fire in late 2005, until a new, modern structure was opened on the original site in September 2009.
Lifeboat station
One of the Southend-on-Sea lifeboat station's two boathouses is located at the pierhead of Southend pier. It houses an Atlantic 75 class lifeboatAtlantic 75 class lifeboat
B-Class lifeboats serve the shores of the UK as a part of the RNLI inshore fleet.The Atlantic 75 is the second generation Rigid Inflatable Boat in the B-Class series, developed from the Atlantic 21...
and a smaller D class lifeboat
D class lifeboat
The D class lifeboat EA16 is a class of inflatable boat formally operated by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution of the United Kingdom and Ireland. It has been replace by the D class lifeboat -Utilization:...
, both of which are launched by davit
Davit
A davit is a structure, usually made of steel, which is used to lower things over an edge of a long drop off such as lowering a maintenance trapeze down a building or launching a lifeboat over the side of a ship....
into the deep water adjoining the pier. The boathouse is a modern structure, which incorporates crew accommodation and offices, an RNLI shop, and a viewing gallery from which visitors can view the lifeboats. It is topped by a sun deck to which the public have access. Lifeboat crews use an electric buggy, complete with sirens and blue flashing lights, to access this boathouse along the pier from the shore.
A lifeboat has been stationed on the pier since 1879. Initially lifeboats were launched using davits, much as they are today. However in 1935, a new lifeboat house was erected at the pier head that provided a slipway for launching the lifeboat. This lasted until 1986, when the collision of the Kingsabbey with the pier destroyed the boathouse. A temporary boathouse was used until 2002, when the current boathouse opened.
In fiction
- Southend Pier featured in the end credits of the British television series MinderMinder (TV series)Minder is a British comedy-drama about the London criminal underworld. Initially produced by Verity Lambert, it was made by Euston Films, a subsidiary of Thames Television and shown on ITV...
. The sequence showed unscrupulous businessman Arthur Daley and his bodyguard (or "minder") walking down the pier. When they reach the end Arthur realises he has left his lighter at the far end and they proceed to walk the return journey. The comic implication is that he is too mean to pay for the train ride.
- The pier is mentioned in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy series created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978, it was later adapted to other formats, and over several years it gradually became an international multi-media phenomenon...
; after Ford and Arthur were thrown off a VogonVogonThe Vogons are a fictional alien race from the planet Vogsphere in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams, who are responsible for the destruction of the Earth, in order to facilitate an intergalactic highway construction project. Vogons are slug-like but vaguely humanoid, are...
Construction ship and were picked up by the Improbability drive, on the starship Heart of Gold, Arthur remarks that it looks like they're standing "on the seafront at Southend". In the 1981 BBC TV adaptation however, neither the set used for the pier nor the view of the buildings on the shore look anything like Southend.
External links
- southendpiermuseum.co.uk - Southend Pier Museum
- southendpier.co.uk - Southend Pier and Foreshore
- citytransport.info/S-Piera.htm - Internal and external photographs of the 1949 electric trains.
- Webcam of pier - southend.go.uk