Lancashire’s Seaside Piers

By Martin Easdown ISBN 1-845630-93-9

Reviewed by Carl Hubbard March 2010

To any pier and seaside enthusiast, sit down and put your feet up with this latest volume on the North West piers compiled by National Pier Society veteran Martin Easdown.  We all have our own favourite seaside location and its pier, but wherever that may be, this book concentrating solely on the piers of not only Lancashire but the Mersey, Cumbria and the Isle of Man will not disappoint.  Today with many of the structures the book features sadly gone it is perhaps easy to forget that the North West stretch of coastline once boasted not only twelve fully fledged seaside piers but many boating, shipping piers and landing stages.  Seaside Lancashire and its coastal-side neighbours certainly were among those at the forefront of the golden age of pier building between 1860 – 1910. Featured are some  waterfront towns now perhaps little known by the masses of today that were once bustling frequented seaside pleasure zones in their own right as even pier structures used purely for landing and departing were given little waiting and refreshment kiosk along with other land based attractions.

Starting with the piers of the Mersey, namely the one true deserving of its status and now sadly no more its seaside and ferry structure ‘New Brighton’ the book then takes you through the ferries and landing stages that the area as always been famed for, culminating in the capital Liverpool.  Ferries and boating are clearly a passion of Martins too as this lengthy chapter gives an in-depth historical study of them.  We then move onto the infamous joke of ‘Wigan Pier’ before going onto Britain’s oldest surviving and second longest iron pier Southport proud in her glorious AD refurb.  Travelling then across the estuary to Lytham and St Anne’s on the Sea, sedate Lancashire seaside towns where the latter has the one remaining pier of the two even if perhaps a shadow of its former self.  The famous of them all follows, reigning supreme with its three structures still standing after years of changing taste, of course Lancashire’s working class jewel of a seaside town non other than Blackpool.  A tram ride up the coast we arrive at Fleetwood.  A tragic tale here of a pier that should have been celebrating its centenary in glory this year but after recent years of a yo-yo of mismanagement, closures and neglect unforgivably lost forever after the ferocious 2008 fire that signed its death knell.  We come to good ‘ole’ Morecambe Bay then.  A once thriving seaside pleasure Mecca that rivalled Blackpool for its working class affection with two beautiful iron piers proudly stretching into each bay at either side of its historical stone jetty.  The latter outliving its pleasure pier neighbours to be the towns surviving walk out to the wave’s alternative.  Going into Cumbria we come to Arnside and its small stone pier a little promenade to this day before taking a glimpse into the genteel Grange-Over-Sands and Barrow in Furness.  Here its Victorian wooden piers are just a memory in the sands of time.  Our last trip down memory lane is across the waters to the Isle of Man where in Douglas its long gone iron pier was transported to Rhos on Sea in Wales and then culminating in Ramsey’s Queens Pier, a pier that needs rescuing before it disappears one day like many of the structures we have read about.

The book is well illustrated with black and white photographs of the piers through their histories from past to present day.  Each chapter heading is sub headed with a poignant and sometimes touching little line, such as in Lytham ‘where now only grass grows where the pier once stood’ and in Fleetwood ‘A Cinderella Pier left to linger and die’.  Martin as clearly delved into the archives and history of each town as the detail and facts are documented from their earliest of origins.  The book takes you into another era, the days when our seaside piers were the promenade to ‘be seen’ with ornate railings, elaborate shelters and often gilded palaces at their pier heads for Orchestras, theatricals and balls.  The piers that catered for the Lancashire masses on their Wakes Weeks from the industrial towns full of merriment with open air dancing and skating rinks.  All these of a bygone age are like some of the piers resigned to the history books as they have often perished in fires or man made destroyed to make way for amusement centres more in keeping with the demand of today’s seaside visitors.  However as Martin says in his final postscript ‘better an amusement pier than no pier at all’.  We are reminded all too clearly throughout the book of the vulnerability of the life of a pier not only from the often harsh natural elements it faces on the open beach and sea but all too often the mistakes that man has inflicted on them with doomed to fail ideas and lack of TLC.  However the North West coast still retains six of its original twelve seaside piers.  Southport once again grand and refurbished.  Blackpool’s three amusement pleasure decks with a touch of their historical details, unmistakeable decadent heritage.  St Anne’s on the Sea truncated pier going on in her unassuming way and last the unspoilt yet venerable closed Ramsey’s Queen.  A pier that remains very much in the guise it was built retaining its uncluttered Victorian promenade.

The book was doubly of interest to me as not only being somewhat fanatical about our piers but I am fortunate to live in Blackpool very close to its North Pier and my place of work is sited close to the central pier.  Structures that are close to my pier loving heart and to read their stories were not to be missed.  I have also visited some of the other towns the book features, where their once beautiful piers are just a memory now and to me it pulls at my emotions having looked at empty spaces on a shoreline where once iron stilts and boardwalk stretched down over the waves and gave so much seaside pleasure in their heyday.  These towns I am certain have never been quite the same since the demise of their piers.  Thank you to Martin Easdown and this wonderful book I was taken to them all in my imagination wearing a Victorian three piece suit and knowing that there is no place so quintessentially English than our beloved piers.

Carl Hubbard March 2010