FIRST PROMENADE PIERS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19277, 15 September 1924, Page 8

FIRST PROMENADE PIERS.

BRIGHTON TAKES THE LEAD.

Brighton was the first seaside resort in England to have a promenade pier. In 1820 a Captain Thomas put forward a plan for a pier, and the following year the suggested site was adopted and tho construction of the old Chain Pier was begun. This was opened in 1623, and it rapidly because the promenade centre of the town. Townspeople flocked to the pier to exchange gossip and to criticise, and decry, or envy, as the case might be, their neighbours and the latest fashionable foibles. In 1833 two of the pier gangways were destroyed in a storm, and further damage was done three years later. The old Chain Pier lasted until 1896, when it was destroyed by a gale. It had been condemned three years previously owing to its dangerous condition. Eventually it was replaced by tho attractive structure we know to-day as the Palace Pier. Blackpool opened a wonderful pier in 1863, and other towni followed suit, though many places in exposed positions on the east an<* north-east coasts were unable to establisl such edifices without running considerable risks.

Two of tho longest piers in the country are at Southend and at Southport. Both are about a mile in length, and boast light railways for conveying holic.ay-makem to and from the head.