Birnbeck Pier

Birnbeck Pier is a pier in Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset, England. It is situated on the Bristol Channel approximately 18 miles (28 km) south west of Bristol. Birnbeck is the only pier in the country which links the mainland to an island just off shore. The pier is currently closed to the public.

The grade II* listed pier was designed by Eugenius Birch and opened in 1867. The gothic toll house and pierhead buildings were designed by local architect Hans Price. [cite web | url= http://www.birnbeck.co.uk/extra.mhtml?page_no=0&count-num=29926 | title= Birnbeck Pier A Brief History | work= Weston-super-Mare Pier Company | accessdate= 2007-07-05 ]

History

Construction

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. cite book | last = Terrell | first = Stan | title = Birnbeck Pier Weston-super-Mare, a short history | publisher = North Somerset Museum Service | location = Weston-super-Mare | date = 1996 | id =ISBN 0-901104-10-8 ]

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 convert|1150|ft|m|0 long and convert|20|ft|m|0 wide. As it has abutments at either end – one on the mainland and one on Birnbeck Island – its construction is 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 bye-law also banned marching in the future.

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.

Operation

The pier opened on 6 June 1867, Cecil Hugh Pigot-Smyth again being the host of the ceremony, the town taking a holiday and holding a banquet in the Town Hall. The toll to walk on the pier was initially 1d, but this was quickly raised to 2d – the maximum allowed by Act of Parliament; 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 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. 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". [cite web | title=Birnbeck Pier | work=The Heritage Trail | url=http://www.theheritagetrail.co.uk/piers/birnberk%20pier.htm | accessdate=2007-01-07] van der Bijl, Nicholas (2000). "Brean Down Fort: Its History and the Defences of the Bristol Channel". Cossington: Hawk Editions. ISBN 0-9529081-7-4.]

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 has since been several other 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. They 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 pleasure "steamers" 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.

Dereliction

The pier was damaged by drifting equipment from engineering work in Sand Bay, to the north of the pier, in February 1984. The £1,000,000 of damage was quickly repaired, despite fears that Birnbeck might become like nearby Clevedon Pier, which at the time was severed by a collapsed span.

The pier was again badly damaged by storms in 1990 and was closed for safety reasons in 1994. It continues to decline and as a consequence English Heritage have placed it on the Buildings at Risk Register. [cite web | title=Birnbeck Pier | work=English Heritage Buildings at Risk Register | url=http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/ConBar.4758 | accessdate=2007-01-07]

In 2006 the pier was sold to new owners, Manchester company Urban Splash. The people of Weston-super-Mare are waiting to see the company's plans for the future of the pier, the island and its buildings. [cite web | title=Boyhood joy led to pier purchase | work=BBC News| url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/5345876.stm | accessdate=2007-01-07] In 2007 the repair work required was estimated at £4 million. [cite news |first=Maev |last=Kennedy |authorlink= |author= |coauthors= |title=The stately wrecks of England |url=http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/heritage/story/0,,2134085,00.html |format= |work=The Guardian |publisher= |id= |pages= |page= |date=Wednesday July 25, 2007 |accessdate=2007-07-27 |language=English |quote= ]

A competition was launched in August 2007 by new owners Urban Splash, inviting people to submit ideas for the regeneration of the pier and island. [cite web | url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/6944817.stm | title= Pier design competition planned | work= BBC News | date= 13 August 2007 | accessdate= 2007-08-14 ]

In March 2008 the winners of the design competition were announced. There were 95 entries for the competition from around the world and from these, a shortlist of six was chosen with Levitate Architecture and Design Studio Ltd emerging as the eventual winners, [cite web |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/7293783.stm |title=Pier design winners are announced |accessdate=2008-03-14 |format= |work=BBC News ] who won £25,000 and will be paid a commission fee for their work. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Exclusive plans for Birnbeck revealed as winner is announced |url= |work=Weston Mercury |publisher= |date=2008-03-13 |accessdate=2008-03-14 ] The winning design included a dozen luxury apartments and a 50-room hotel. [cite news |first=Robert |last=Booth |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Goodbye kiss me quick: developers offer new hope for crumbling piers |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/mar/13/regeneration.communities |work=The Guardian |publisher= |date=2008-03-13 |accessdate=2008-03-14 ]

Weston lifeboat

The extreme tidal range in the Bristol Channel made it difficult to find a site from which a lifeboat could be easily launched at all states of the tide. In 1882 davits were installed on the pier which allowed the town's first Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) lifeboat to be launched like a ships' lifeboat into the water below, even at low tide.cite book | last = Morris | first = Jeff | title = The Story of the Weston-super-Mare Lifeboats | publisher = Jeff Morris | date = 2000 | location = Weston-super-Mare]

This lifeboat was only involved in two rescues but one involved taking 40 passenegers off the "ss Welsh Prince" which got into difficulties after leaving Birnbeck Pier on 22 September 1884. In 1889 this was replaced by a larger lifeboat for which was built a new lifeboat house with a 100ft (30 m) slipway on the north east side of the island. The present lifeboat house was built on the south east side of the island in 1902 and has the longest lifeboat slipway in England, measuring 368 ft (112 m). Due to the condition of the pier alternative launch sites were tried at Anchor Hed (where a new boat house was built and now serves as an RNLI fund-raising shop) and in the River Axe at Uphill, however boats are currently launched from trolleys moved up and down the old northern slipway by tractors.The first motored lifeboat in Somerset was stationed at Weston from 1933. The first inshore lifeboat here arrived in 1966 and since 1969 the service has been operated by a pair of these smaller boats, one D class and a larger rigid inflatable. These are more suitable to the mudflats and rocky headlands of the Somerset coast than the larger all-weather boats. The current pair are: [cite web| title =Weston-super-Mare fleet| work =The RNLI| publisher =RNLI| url =http://www.rnli.org.uk/rnli_near_you/southwest/stations/WestonsuperMare/fleet| accessdate = 2008-06-26]

* Atlantic 75 class lifeboat B-769 "Coventry and Warwickshire" (from 14 October 2000)
* D class lifeboat D-537 "Faith" (from 17 October 1998)

Earlier lifeboats have been:
* 8-oared "William James Holt" (1882 - 1889)
* 12-oarded "William James Holt" (1889 - 1903)
* Watson class "Colonel Stock" (1903 - 1933)
* Liverpool class "Fifi and Charles" (1933 - 1962)
* Oakley class "Calouste Gulbenkian" (1962 - 1969)
* Watson class "Rachel and Mary Evans" (relief boat 1969, wrecked after breaking free from its mooring)
* D class 47 (1969 - 1970, an inshore boat to cover for the wrecked all-weather boat)
* McLachlan class 18-004, later renumbered A-504 (1970 - 1983)
* Atlantic 21 B557 "Weston Centenary" (1983 - 2000)18-004 was the fist production member of the McLachlan class. It was displayed at the Earls Court Boat Show in 1970 prior to its arrival at Weston and is now retired to the Lifeboat Museum at Chatham Historic Dockyard.

The D class inshore "number 2" boats have been:
* 83 (1966 - 1967)
* 74 (1967 - 1973)
* D-170 (1973 - 1981)
* D-282 (1981 - 1989)
* D-387 "Boto-X 87" (1989 - 1998)

Television

Birnbeck Pier was used as a night club in "Find the Lady", a 1979 episode of the television detective series "Shoestring". Trevor Eve, who played the Eddie Shoestring, was supported by guest star Toyah Willcox who played the singer of a punk rock band.

ee also

* Weston-super-Mare Grand Pier
* List of piers

References

External links

* [http://www.birnbeck-island.co.uk Birnbeck Competition website]
* [http://www.birnbeck.co.uk Birnbeck Pier website]
* [http://www.birnbeckpier.org/ Friends of the Old Pier Society]
* [http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/scooby/island.htm Photos and account of a visit to the derelict Birnbeck Pier]
* [http://www.rnli.org.uk/rnli_near_you/southwest/stations/WestonsuperMare/ RNLI Weston Lifeboat]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/west/series7/birnbeck_pier.shtml BBC TV Inside Out article on Birnbeck Pier]
*EHbarName|Birnbeck+Pier