A
pier is a raised structure, including
bridgeA bridge is a structure built to span physical obstacles such as a body of water, valley, or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle...
and building supports and
walkwayIn US English, a walkway is a composite or umbrella term for all engineered surfaces or structures which support the use of trails. These include sidewalks, footbridges, stiles, stairs, ramps, paseos or tunnels...
s, over water, typically supported by widely spread piles or
pillarsA column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a vertical structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. For the purpose of wind or earthquake engineering, columns may be designed to resist lateral forces...
. The lighter structure of a pier allows tides and currents to flow almost unhindered, whereas the more solid foundations of a quay or the closely spaced piles of a
wharfA wharf or quay is a structure on the shore of a harbor where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers.Such a structure includes one or more berths , and may also include piers, warehouses, or other facilities necessary for handling the ships.A wharf commonly comprises a fixed...
can act as a
breakwaterBreakwaters are structures constructed on coasts as part of coastal defence or to protect an anchorage from the effects of weather and longshore drift.-Purposes of breakwaters:...
, and are consequently more liable to silting. Piers can range in size and complexity from a simple lightweight wooden structure to major structures extended over a mile out to sea. In
American EnglishAmerican English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
, pier may be synonymous with
dockA dock is a human-made structure or group of structures involved in the handling of boats or ships, usually on or close to a shore.However, the exact meaning varies among different variants of the English language...
.
Piers have been built for several purposes, and because these different purposes have distinct regional variances, the term
pier tends to have different nuances of meaning in different parts of the world. Thus in
North AmericaNorth America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
and
Australia-Roads:Australia has the second highest level of car ownership in the world. It has three to four times more road per capita than Europe and seven to nine times more than Asia. Australia also has the third highest per capita rate of fuel consumption in the world. Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane are...
, where many ports were, until recently, built on the multiple pier model, the term tends to imply a current or former cargo-handling facility. In
EuropeTransport in Europe provides for the movement needs of over 700 million people and associated freight. The political geography of Europe divides the continent into over 50 sovereign states and territories...
in contrast, where ports more often use basins and river-side quays than piers, the term is principally associated with the image of a
VictorianThe Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
cast ironCast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...
pleasure pier. However, the earliest piers pre-date the Victorian age.
Types of pier
Piers can be categorized into different groupings according to the principal purpose. However there is considerable overlap between these categories. For example, pleasure piers often also allow for the docking of pleasure steamers and other similar craft, whilst working piers have often been converted to leisure use after being rendered obsolete by advanced developments in cargo-handling technology.
Working piers
Working piers were built for the handling of passengers and cargo onto and off ships or (as at
Wigan PierWigan Pier is the name given today to the area around the canal at the bottom of the Wigan flight of locks on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. It is a popular location for visitors and the local community in Wigan, Greater Manchester, England, situated just a few hundred yards south-west of the town...
) canal boats. Working piers themselves fall into two different groups. Longer individual piers are often found at ports with large
tidal rangesTides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the moon and the sun and the rotation of the Earth....
, with the pier stretching far enough off shore to reach deep water at low tide. Such piers provided an economical alternative to impounded docks where cargo volumes were low, or where specialist bulk cargo was handled, such as at
coal pierA coal pier is a transloading facility designed for the transfer of coal between rail and ship.The typical facility for loading ships consists of a holding area and a system of conveyors for transferring the coal to dockside and loading it into the ship's cargo holds...
s. The other form of working pier, often called the finger pier, was built at ports with smaller tidal ranges. Here the principal advantage was to give a greater available quay length for ships to berth against compared to a linear littoral quayside, and such piers are usually much shorter. Typically each pier would carry a single transit shed the length of the pier, with ships berthing bow or stern in to the shore. Some major ports consisted of large numbers of such piers lining the foreshore, classic examples being the
Hudson RiverThe Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
frontage of
New YorkNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, or the
EmbarcaderoThe Embarcadero is the eastern waterfront and roadway of the Port of San Francisco, San Francisco, California, along San Francisco Bay, constructed atop an engineered seawall on reclaimed land, and derives its name from the Spanish verb embarcar, meaning "to embark"...
in
San FranciscoSan Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
.
The advent of container shipping, with its need for large container handling spaces adjacent to the shipping berths, has made working piers obsolete for the handling of general cargo, although some still survive for the handling of passenger ships or bulk cargos. One example, is in use in
Progreso, YucatánProgreso is a port city in the Mexican state of Yucatán, located on the Gulf of Mexico in the north-west of the state some 30 minutes north of state capital Mérida by highway. As of the Mexican census of 2005, Progreso had an official population of 35,519 inhabitants, the fifth-largest community...
, where a pier extends more than 4 miles into the
Gulf of MexicoThe Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
, making it the longest pier in the world. The Progreso Pier supplies much of the peninsula with transportation for the fishing and cargo industries and serves as a port for large cruise ships in the area. Many other working piers have been demolished, or remain derelict, but some have been recycled as pleasure piers. The best known example of this is
Pier 39Pier 39 is a shopping center and popular tourist attraction built on a pier in San Francisco, California. At Pier 39, there are shops, restaurants, a video arcade, street performances, an interpretive center for the Marine Mammal Center, the Aquarium of the Bay, virtual 3D rides, and views of...
in San Francisco.
At
SouthportThe Southport Spit lies opposite Southport to the north of Main Beach, Gold Coast. It is a permanent sand spit that separates the Southport Broadwater from the Pacific Ocean....
and the
Tweed RiverThe Tweed River is a short river in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia. Its drainage basin consists mostly of the erosion caldera of the Tweed Volcano, a huge extinct volcano of which Mount Warning is the volcanic plug...
on the
Gold CoastGold Coast is a coastal city of Australia located in South East Queensland, 94km south of the state capital Brisbane. With a population approximately 540,000 in 2010, it is the second most populous city in the state, the sixth most populous city in the country, and also the most populous...
in
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, there are piers that support equipment for a sand bypassing system that maintains the
health of sandy beachesIn some jurisdictions the terms sea defense and coastal protection are used to mean, respectively, defense against flooding and erosion...
and
navigation channelsA body of water, such as a river, canal or lake, is navigable if it is deep, wide and slow enough for a vessel to pass. Preferably there are few obstructions such as rocks or trees to avoid. Bridges must have sufficient clearance. High water speed may make a channel unnavigable. Waters may be...
.
Pleasure piers
Pleasure piers were first built in
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, during the 19th century. The earliest structures were
Ryde PierRyde Pier is an early 19th century pier serving the town of Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England.- Before the pier :Before the pier was built, passengers to Ryde had the uncomfortable experience of coming ashore on the back of a porter and then, depending on the state of the...
, built in 1813/4, Leith Trinity Chain Pier, built in 1821, and
Brighton Chain PierThe Royal Suspension Chain Pier was the first major pier built in Brighton, England. Generally known as the Chain Pier, it was designed by Captain Samuel Brown and built in 1823. The pier was primarily intended as a landing stage for packet boats to Dieppe, Seine-Maritime, but it also featured a...
, built in 1823. Only the oldest of these piers still remains. At that time the introduction of the railways for the first time permitted mass tourism to dedicated seaside resorts. However, the large tidal ranges at many such resorts meant that for much of the day, the sea was not visible from dry land. The pleasure pier was the resorts' answer, permitting holiday makers to promenade over and alongside the sea at all times.
The longest Pleasure pier in the worldSouthend Pier is a major landmark in Southend-on-Sea. Extending 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....
is at
Southend-on-seaSouthend-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...
,
EssexEssex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
, and extends 2158 metres (1.34 mi) into the
Thames estuaryThe 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...
. The longest pier on the West Coast of the United States is the
Oceanside PierThe Oceanside Pier, located in Oceanside, in northern San Diego County, California, is the longest wooden pier on the western United States coastline at .-History:Oceanside Pier was first built in 1888 at what is now Wisconsin Avenue...
.
Pleasure piers often include other amusements and
theatreTheatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
s as part of the attraction. Such a pier may be open air, closed, or partly open, partly closed. Sometimes a pier has two decks.
Early pleasure piers were of
woodWood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
en construction, with
ironIron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
structures being introduced with the construction in 1855 of Margate Jetty, in
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....
, England. Margate was wrecked in storms in 1978 and was never repaired. The oldest iron pleasure pier pier still remaining is in
SouthportSouthport 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...
, England, and dates from 1860 - however the world's oldest iron pier dates from 1834 and is in
Gravesend, KentGravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, on the south bank of the Thames, opposite Tilbury in Essex. It is the administrative town of the Borough of Gravesham and, because of its geographical position, has always had an important role to play in the history and communications of this part of...
. Gravesham council have recently purchased and refurbished this passenger pier.
Fishing piers
Many piers are built for the purpose of providing boatless anglers access to fishing grounds that are otherwise inaccessible.
Piers of the world
See the
List of piers article for details of piers in countries across the world.
England and Wales
The first recorded pier in
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
was
Ryde PierRyde Pier is an early 19th century pier serving the town of Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England.- Before the pier :Before the pier was built, passengers to Ryde had the uncomfortable experience of coming ashore on the back of a porter and then, depending on the state of the...
, opened in 1814 on the
Isle of WightThe Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
, as a landing stage to allow ferries to and from the mainland to berth. It is still used for this purpose today. However it has had a leisure function in the past, with the pier head once containing a pavilion. There are still refreshment facilities today. The oldest
cast ironCast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...
pier in the world is
Gravesend Town PierGravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, on the south bank of the Thames, opposite Tilbury in Essex. It is the administrative town of the Borough of Gravesham and, because of its geographical position, has always had an important role to play in the history and communications of this part of...
, in
KentKent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, which opened in 1834. However, it is not recognised by the National Piers Society as being a seaside pier.
In their heyday, there were many pleasure piers across England and
WalesWales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. These were found in most fashionable
seaside resortA seaside resort is a resort, or resort town, located on the coast. Where a beach is the primary focus for tourists, it may be called a beach resort.- Overview :...
s during the
Victorian eraThe Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
. There are still a significant number of piers of architectural merit still standing, although some have been lost. The most well known piers are perhaps the two at
BrightonBrighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
in
East SussexEast Sussex is a county in South East England. It is bordered by the counties of Kent, Surrey and West Sussex, and to the south by the English Channel.-History:...
and the three at
BlackpoolBlackpool is a borough, seaside town, and unitary authority area of Lancashire, in North West England. It is situated along England's west coast by the Irish Sea, between the Ribble and Wyre estuaries, northwest of Preston, north of Liverpool, and northwest of Manchester...
in
LancashireLancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
. Two piers, Brighton's now derelict
West PierThe West Pier is a pier in Brighton, England. It was built in 1866 by Eugenius Birch and has been closed and deteriorating since 1975, awaiting renovation...
and
Clevedon PierClevedon Pier is a seaside pier in the town of Clevedon, on the English side of the Severn Estuary. It is situated next to the Royal Pier Hotel....
, were Grade 1 listed:Brighton West lost its status after a series of fires and storms. The
Birnbeck PierBirnbeck Pier is a pier in Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset, England. It is situated on the Bristol Channel approximately south west of Bristol...
in
Weston-super-MareWeston-super-Mare is a seaside resort, town and civil parish in the unitary authority of North Somerset, which is within the ceremonial county of Somerset, England. It is located on the Bristol Channel coast, south west of Bristol, spanning the coast between the bounding high ground of Worlebury...
is the only pier in the world that is linked to an island.
The
National Piers SocietyThe National Piers Society is a registered charity in the United Kingdom dedicated to promoting and sustaining interest in the preservation and continued enjoyment of seaside piers....
gives a figure of 55 surviving seaside piers in England and Wales.
Netherlands
Scheveningen, the coastal resort town of
The HagueThe Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
, boasts the largest pier in the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, it was completed in 1961. A crane, built on top of the pier's panorama tower, provides the opportunity to make a 60 metres (196.9 ft). high bungee jump over the North Sea waves. The present pier is a successor of an earlier pier, which was completed in 1901 but in 1943 destroyed by the German occupation forces.
Belgium
In
BlankenbergeBlankenberge is a town and a municipality in the Belgian province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the town of Blankenberge proper and the settlement of Uitkerke.On 1 January 2010 Blankenberge had a total population of 18,907...
a first pleasure pier was built in 1894. After its destruction in the
World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, a new pier was built in 1933. It remained till the present day, but was partially transformed and modernized in 1999-2004.
In
Nieuwpoort, BelgiumNieuwpoort is a municipality located in Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium, and in the Flemish province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Nieuwpoort proper and the towns of Ramskapelle and Sint-Joris. On January 1, 2008 Nieuwpoort had a total population of 11,062....
there is a pleasure pier on both sides of the river Ijzer
See also
- Boardwalk
A boardwalk, in the conventional sense, is a wooden walkway for pedestrians and sometimes vehicles, often found along beaches, but they are also common as paths through wetlands, coastal dunes, and other sensitive environments....
- Breakwater
Breakwaters are structures constructed on coasts as part of coastal defence or to protect an anchorage from the effects of weather and longshore drift.-Purposes of breakwaters:...
- Dock
A dock is a human-made structure or group of structures involved in the handling of boats or ships, usually on or close to a shore.However, the exact meaning varies among different variants of the English language...
- Jetty
A jetty is any of a variety of structures used in river, dock, and maritime works that are generally carried out in pairs from river banks, or in continuation of river channels at their outlets into deep water; or out into docks, and outside their entrances; or for forming basins along the...
- List of piers
- Seaside resort
A seaside resort is a resort, or resort town, located on the coast. Where a beach is the primary focus for tourists, it may be called a beach resort.- Overview :...
- Wharf
A wharf or quay is a structure on the shore of a harbor where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers.Such a structure includes one or more berths , and may also include piers, warehouses, or other facilities necessary for handling the ships.A wharf commonly comprises a fixed...
External links