At one point, Britain was home to 100 seaside piers. Today, however, only around 55 of those still stand. Those that remain draw in millions of visitors per year and are often found in seaside destinations for Brits; for instance, the East of England in Cromer or the North of England in Blackpool.
The Piers That Started It All
The modern piers (how we know them today) began in the 1860s. This was when railway expansion started to bring working-class families to the coast for the very first time.
Blackpool North Pier, which was designed by Eugenius Birch, opened on the 21st May 1863. It was the first of its kind and is still active today. Back then, 20,000 people attended its opening ceremony, and in the first year alone, it attracted more than 275,000 visitors.
Business quickly started to boom. That’s when competition started to arise, following the opening of Blackpool’s Central Pier (1868) and South Pier (1893). The Central Pier is now the most popular and is known for its famous Big Wheel.
Brighton Palace Pier quickly followed in 1899. This replaced the storm-damaged Chain Pier. You also had Southend Pier in Essex. This was erected in 1830 and was extended multiple times through the 1800s.
These piers are what started the craze. Seaside entertainment businesses quickly saw the number of people attracted to these. And with the innovation of railway travel, from this day forward, piers started to be developed or turned into entertainment hubs.
What the Piers Offered
Back in the day, piers housed theatres, bandstands, fortune tellers, penny arcades, slot machines, and more. By the early 20th century, dance halls, funfairs, and bingo halls were added. Bingo, in particular, became a staple of the British seaside.
Over time, piers became a tourist attraction and a centre point for most seaside towns. As a result, the surrounding areas also started populating with shops, services, and extra entertainment businesses.
What’s offered now is a bit different. A lot of British seaside towns are dying out. Now, you’ll commonly see a few pubs and shops, and for the pier itself, they mostly have entertainment areas with arcade-style or gambling games.
From the Pier to the Screen
We’ve seen the closure of many due to the demand for entertainment changing from physical to digital. Bingo halls, for example, have reduced in size.
Online platforms now offer bingo bonus codes, with offers like £10 worth of free bingo tickets. Such promotions were never as widely available in brick-and-mortar bingo halls, so it makes sense that a lot of bingo fans migrated online.
This goes for other forms of entertainment as well. Theatres have been replaced by TV, arcades have been replaced with video games, and so forth.
A Heritage Worth Preserving
The piers that survive today are a reminder of what British leisure used to look like.
Before streaming and smartphones, people went to the British seaside for entertainment. Now, however, everything is accessible, resulting in fewer visits to the sea and our piers.
Still, they represent over 160 years of entertainment history, and we should try to preserve piers. That said, if you’re ever thinking of a day out, visiting a local pier should be on your list of things to do.