Apieris a raised structure that rises above abody of waterand usually juts out from itsshore,typically supported bypilesorpillars,and provides above-water access to offshore areas. Frequent pier uses includefishing,boatdocking and access for both passengers andcargo,and oceansiderecreation.Bridges, buildings, andwalkwaysmay all be supported byarchitectural piers.Their open structure allows tides and currents to flow relatively unhindered, whereas the more solid foundations of aquayor the closely spaced piles of awharfcan act as abreakwater,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 1,600 m (5,200 ft). InAmerican English,a pier may be synonymous with adock.

A wooden pier inCorfu,Greece

Piers have been built for several purposes, and because these different purposes have distinct regional variances, the termpiertends to have different nuances of meaning in different parts of the world. Thus inNorth AmericaandAustralia,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 contrast, inEurope,where ports more often use basins and river-side quays than piers, the term is principally associated with the image of aVictoriancast ironpleasure pier. However, the earliest piers pre-date theVictorian age.

Types

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Piers can be categorized into different groupings according to the principal purpose.[1]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, while working piers have often been converted to leisure use after being rendered obsolete by advanced developments in cargo-handling technology. Many piers are floating piers, to ensure that the piers raise and lower with the tide along with the boats tied to them. This prevents a situation where lines become overly taut or loose by rising or lowering tides. An overly taut or loose tie-line can damage boats by pulling them out of the water or allowing them so much leeway that they bang forcefully against the sides of the pier.

Working piers

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Out-of-use industrial bulk cargo Pier,Cook Inlet,Alaska.

Working piers were built for the handling of passengers and cargo onto and off ships or (as atWigan Pier) canal boats. Working piers themselves fall into two different groups. Longer individual piers are often found at ports with largetidal ranges,with the pier stretching far enough off shore to reach deep water at low tide. Such piers provided an economical alternative toimpounded dockswhere cargo volumes were low, or where specialistbulk cargowas handled, such as atcoal piers.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 singletransit shedthe 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 theHudson Riverfrontage ofNew York,or theEmbarcaderoinSan Francisco.

The advent ofcontainer 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 inProgreso, Yucatán,where a pier extends more than 4 miles into theGulf of Mexico,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 largecruise shipsin 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 isPier 39inSan Francisco.

AtSouthportand theTweed Riveron theGold CoastinAustralia,there are piers that support equipment for a sand bypassing system that maintains thehealth of sandy beachesandnavigation channels.

Pleasure piers

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Printofa Victorian pier in Margatein the English county of Kent, 1897

Pleasure piers were first built in Britain during the early 19th century.[2]The earliest structures wereRyde Pier,built in 1813/4,Trinity Chain Piernear Leith, built in 1821,Brighton Chain Pier,built in 1823.[2]andMargate Jetty1823/24 originally a timber built pier.

Only the oldest of these piers still remains. At that time, the introduction of steamships and railways for the first time permitted mass tourism to dedicatedseaside resorts.The large tidal ranges at many such resorts meant that passengers arriving by pleasure steamer could use a pier to disembark safely.[3]Also, for much of the day, the sea was not visible from the shore and the pleasure pier permitted holidaymakers to promenade over and alongside the sea at all times.[4]The world's longest pleasure pieris atSouthend-on-Sea,Essex,and extends 1.3 miles (2.1 km) into theThames Estuary.[2]The longest pier on the West Coast of the US is theSanta Cruz Wharf,with a length of 2,745 feet (837 m).[5]

Providing a walkway out to sea, pleasure piers often include amusements and theatres as part of their attractions.[4]Such a pier may be unroofed, closed, or partly open and partly closed. Sometimes a pier has two decks.Galveston Island Historic Pleasure PierinGalveston,Texas has a roller coaster, 15 rides, carnival games and souvenir shops.[6]

Early pleasure piers were of complete timber construction, as was with Margate which opened in 1824. The first iron and timber built pleasure pierMargate Jetty,opened in 1855.[7]Margate pier was wrecked by a storm in January 1978 and not repaired.[8][7]The longest iron pleasure pier still remaining is the one at Southend. First opened as a wooden pier in 1829, it was reconstructed in iron and completed in 1889. In a 2006 UK poll, the public voted the seaside pier onto the list of icons of England.[9]

Fishing piers

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Many piers are built for the purpose of providing boatless anglers access to fishing grounds that are otherwise inaccessible.[10]Many "Free Piers" are available in larger harbors which differ from private piers. Free Piers are often primarily used for fishing. Fishing from a pier presents a set of different circumstances to fishing from the shore or beach, as you do not need to cast out into the deeper water. This being the case there are specific fishing rigs that have been created specifically for pier fishing[11]which allow for the direct access to deeper water.

Piers of the world

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Belgium

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InBlankenbergea first pleasure pier was built in 1894. After its destruction in theWorld War I,a new pier was built in 1933. It remained till the present day, but was partially transformed and modernized in 1999–2004.

InNieuwpoort, Belgiumthere is a pleasure pier on both sides of the riverIJzer.

Netherlands

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Scheveningen,the coastal resort town ofThe Hague,boasts the largest pier in theNetherlands,completed in 1961. A crane, built on top of the pier's panorama tower, provides the opportunity to make a 60-metre (200 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.

United Kingdom

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England and Wales

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The first recorded pier inEnglandwasRyde Pier,opened in 1814 on theIsle of Wight,as a landing stage to allow ferries to and from the mainland to berth. It is still used for this purpose today.[12]It also had a leisure function in the past, with the pier head once containing a pavilion, and there are still refreshment facilities today. The oldestcast ironpier in the world isTown Pier, Gravesend,inKent,which opened in 1834. However, it is not recognised by the National Piers Society as being a seaside pier.[13]

Following the building of the world's first seaside pier at Ryde, the pier became fashionable atseaside resortsin England andWalesduring theVictorian era,peaking in the 1860s with 22 being built in that decade.[14]A symbol of the typical British seaside holiday, by 1914, more than 100 pleasure piers were located around the UK coast.[2]Regarded as being among the finest Victorian architecture, there are still a significant number of seaside piers of architectural merit still standing, although some have been lost, includingMargate,two atBrightoninEast Sussex,one atNew Brightonin theWirraland three atBlackpoolinLancashire.[4]Two piers, Brighton's now derelictWest PierandClevedon Pier,were Grade 1listed.TheBirnbeck PierinWeston-super-Mareis the only pier in the world linked to an island. TheNational Piers Societygives a figure of 55 surviving seaside piers in England and Wales.[1]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ab"Piers".National Piers Society.2006. Archived fromthe originalon September 29, 2008.RetrievedFebruary 24,2012.
  2. ^abcd"The expert selection: British seaside piers".No. 1 August 2014. Financial Times. 15 June 2015.Archivedfrom the original on 2022-12-10.
  3. ^Gladwell, Andrew (2015). "Introduction".London's Pleasure Steamers.Amberley Publishing.ISBN978-1445641584.
  4. ^abc"A very British affair - the fall and rise of the seaside pier".BBC News. 16 June 2015.
  5. ^"California Pier Statistics, Longest Piers".seecalifornia.Retrieved2014-02-10.
  6. ^Aulds, T.J. (January 28, 2012)."Landry's Corp. is close to revealing plans".News Article.Galveston Daily News.Archived fromthe originalon January 31, 2012.
  7. ^ab"200 years of historic British piers: in pictures".The Telegraph. Retrieved 15 June 2015
  8. ^"The destruction of Margate jetty in the great storm of January 1978".13 January 2018.
  9. ^"ICONS of England - the 100 ICONS as voted by the public".Culture 24 News. 15 June 2015.
  10. ^"Landscape Design Book"(PDF).University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. 2013.RetrievedJanuary 6,2015.[permanent dead link]
  11. ^VS, Marco (2021-03-21)."Pier Fishing Rigs: 6 Common Types of Rigs for fishing from a Pier".Pro Fishing Reviews.Retrieved2021-10-10.
  12. ^"Britain's best seaside piers".The Telegraph. Retrieved 15 June 2015
  13. ^"The oldest surviving cast iron pier in the world".BBC. February 9, 2006.RetrievedMarch 26,2006.
  14. ^Dobraszczyk, Paul (2014).Iron, Ornament and Architecture in Victorian Britain: Myth and Modernity, Excess and Enchantment.Ashgate Publishing. p. 143.ISBN978-1-472-41898-2.

Further reading

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  • Turner, K., (1999),Pier Railways and Tramways of the British Isles,The Oakwood Press, No. LP60,ISBN0-85361-541-1.
  • Wills, Anthony; Phillips, Tim (2014).British Seaside Piers.London: English Heritage.ISBN9781848022645.
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