Leaning on the coast wall, I watch vast waves barrel in: the Irish Sea is buffeting Llandudno Pier in North Wales, yet its pagoda-style pavilion stands defiant against the spray. Earlier this year, Devon’s Teignmouth Grand Pier wasn’t so lucky: Storm Ingrid lashed the 1867 structure, stealing a section into the depths. ‘They’re brilliantly bonkers, but who on earth would build a pier today?’ asks Dr Anya Chapman, author of Pier Review: Sustainability Toolkit for British Seaside Piers. ‘They’re a glorious part of our seaside heritage, but they’ve got to be adaptable.’
The mid to late 19th century marked the boom: entrepreneurial Victorians saw an opportunity to transform functional jetties into promenades of entertainment and respite from choking industrial smog. Visitors flocked to marvel at magicians, comedians, brass bands and orchestras, to savour cockles and ‘penny lick’ ice creams and breathe the restorative sea breeze.
By 1900, there were almost 100 seaside piers dotted around the British coastline, but 20th-century air travel tempted holiday-makers overseas to warmer waters and blue skies. Meanwhile, at home, ever more powerful squalls and fires left cash-strapped pier owners with hefty repair bills.
Today, about 60 seaside piers remain and National Piers Society chairman Tim Wardley has an optimistic view on their future, attesting to their benefit to the local community. ‘Far from being anachronistic survivors of a bygone era, our seaside piers have never been more popular or relevant to the prosperity and popularity of the seaside experience and coastal tourism economy.’
Wales’s Bangor Garth Pier in Gwynedd is exemplary, combining architectural legacy with economic pragmatism. Opened in 1896, this Grade II*-listed, 1,500ft pier has a magical quality: its fantastical, copper-roofed polygonal kiosks and onion-shaped domed pavilion are set against the dramatic mountain backdrop of Eryri (Snowdonia), yet its custodians very much inhabit the real world. ‘Why preserve heritage just to preserve heritage?’ asserts Avril Wayte, chair of Friends of Bangor Garth Pier. ‘It’s got to live. We’ve got to find ways to make it more self-sustaining.’
Full steam ahead: Bangor’s 1896 Garth Pier, built to berth passenger steamers from Liverpool and Blackpool, is benefiting from a £2 million-plus renovation programme.
The pier was designed by J. J. Webster to receive passenger steamers puffing from Liverpool, Blackpool and elsewhere, but it fell into disrepair and closed in 1971 before being purchased by Bangor City Council for one penny. It reopened in 1988 and restoration spend has since topped £2 million. The pier’s 80-plus volunteers raised £40,000 in 2025 — which was match-funded by Bangor City Council — for substructure repairs and plan to raise a further £130,000, also to be match-funded, aiming to build resilience for decades.
By manning the pier’s entrance, they have turned £3,000 in honesty-box donations into an £80,000-a-year income stream. The kiosks champion local art, craft and comestibles, whereas the pier master’s house is opening as a holiday let. A visitor centre and glass-walled café are other ideas. Amid these changes, the pier’s tranquillity will be retained, assures trustee Vanessa Hawkins. ‘It’s not a place where you come for amusement arcades and video games. It has a really serene quality, with views of the Menai Strait and the mountains.’
Designed by Sunderland’s own Henry Hay Wake, Tyne and Wear’s Roker Pier, which opened in 1903, eschews Victorian ornamentation for spartan concrete and granite: it forms a muscular 2,000ft sweep, arching to diffuse punishing North Sea breakers. Volunteers run hard-hat tours of the ‘under the pier’ tunnel, originally built to aid construction before being adopted by lighthouse keepers as a safe route during storms. Guides flash torches through the darkness to illuminate technical drawings and photographs: Wake designed a gigantic steam-powered hydraulic crane, dubbed Goliath, to drop colossal 45-ton concrete blocks into place.
Sweeping 2,000ft out into the North Sea, Sunderland’s Roker Pier is a curve of concrete and granite equipped to withstand all weathers.
The successful restoration of Roker is a key plank in a multi-million-pound coastal regeneration plan, explains tour guide Maureen McCartney of Roker Pier Heritage Group CIC: ‘Sunderland is on the up. The pier raises the profile of Sunderland and makes it a destination. It’s not only the pier that benefits, it’s the surroundings.’ Proving the point is the upgraded prom, which now resembles a resilient lungomare. There are brightly coloured metal seats, a watersports centre, sculpture, landscaped gardens and new cafés; cycleways knit exhilarating coast-to-coast runs and giant oak pods house businesses.
Encouraging trips between city centre and sea is the next challenge, reveals Sharon Appleby, chief executive of Sunderland BID. ‘We need to be drawing people into our city and our seafront is a huge asset. My job is to try to turn it into a year-round destination. It’s not only about visitors coming from further afield, it’s about local people, too.’ When it comes to sheer dogged survival, a Grade II*-listed structure in North Yorkshire takes the prize.
Designed by John Anderson, Saltburn Pier spanned a proud 1,500ft when it opened in 1869, but lost its seaward end to a storm six years later. A slightly truncated pier reopened in 1877, yet one tempestuous night in 1924 SS Ovenbeg smashed clean through it, creating a 210ft gap, which was repaired in 1930. Gales returned with a vengeance in 1953, 1959, 1961 and 1974: it took a public inquiry to avert demolition and National Lottery funds to put the pier on a solid footing. It is no surprise to discover that, these days, the beach huts here are bolstered by steel frames and are firmly anchored to substrate.
Saltburn’s truncated 1869 pier, linked to the town by Britain’s oldest water-balanced funicular, is a determined survivor of ship-collision damage and debilitating storms.
A stroll down to the pier takes in the 1884 funicular railway, a gravity-defying water-balanced tram that trundles up and down the 120ft cliff between town level and pier. The beach is an invigorating eight-mile stretch of shingle and sand and low-tide affords a close look at cast-iron trestles: in 2000–01 each one was dismantled and restored before being re-anchored on new driven piles, creating the sturdy 681ft pier in place today. Stepping under the pier conjures up images of Ron Herron’s experimental Walking City: at any moment towering legs feel as if they could flex and move the entire structure to an even more dramatic setting down the beach.
‘Exposed to the elements and made from iron, the pier is susceptible to corrosion,’ confirms Redcar and Cleveland councillor Carrie Richardson, who adds that regular inspections identify any remedial work needed. ‘The pier is so important to our borough that these challenges will be overcome. In 20 years’ time, it will essentially look the same as it does today.’
On the Kent coastline, a helter-skelter, cheery carousel and sandcastle competitions at Herne Bay Pier provide visitors with a traditional seaside day out. Yet powering attractions on this 1873 pier is modern technology: a 55yd canopy of solar panels. The pier uses 80% of the generated power, and trustees hope the £60,000 array will fully pay for itself this year, a mere six years after installation.
Power play: renewable energy in the form of solar panels keeps the helter-skelter and carousel running at Herne Bay Pier in Kent.
‘I think the whole thing is ground-breaking,’ enthuses trustee Sue Halfpenny. ‘I believe we are the only pier in the country with solar.’ Looking ahead, wind and wave energy are being explored. The pier also generates income from laser shows, live music and television and film shoots, starring in Netflix’s Black Mirror and Indian action thriller Jagame Thandhiram. ‘You need visionaries,’ adds Ms Halfpenny. ‘You need a vibrant business plan that’s going to point the way forward.’
For a ringside seat on the coastal environment, the Porthole Room in Somerset’s Clevedon Pier is difficult to beat: cormorants can be spotted diving for wrasse and eels and waves slap the glass during blustery spring tides, testament to the Severn Estuary’s 48½ft tidal range.
The under-the-pier vista of sweeping arches is astounding; engineers Richard Ward and John William Grover created a minimalist and graceful design to limit the impact of the elements, recycling wrought-iron tracks from Brunel’s South Wales Railway in the process. The 1869 structure is rightly deserving of its multi-million-pound restoration, Grade I listing and Sir John Betjeman’s ‘most beautiful pier in England’ endorsement.
Interactive displays abound in the visitor centre: cargo ships are trackable on radar and visitors can witness pier construction in a Victorian-style peep show. A bracing walk on deck clears the head and littoral fossils tell the story of millions of years of continental drift. ‘Increasingly for everyone’s wellbeing, green and blue spaces are important and we have those here in bucketloads,’ says Clevedon Pier learning and outreach volunteer Ali Camp, who plans to connect with broader audiences over the coming years. ‘We will create more experiences that inspire learning, reflection and connection.’
Clevedon Pier is a vision of Victorian elegance.
When ticket sales dwindled at Bournemouth Pier’s theatre in Dorset, it was time for drastic action: out went 850 seats and in came an adrenaline-fuelled reinvention, comprising 20-plus colourful climbing walls and the world’s first pier-to-shore zipwire.
The pier continues to evolve, points out group marketing manager James Balcazar: ‘People don’t merely want a view any more; they want a reason to dwell.’ A walk along the 1880 structure reveals plenty of evidence: a photography exhibition celebrates a litter-free shoreline and a ‘selfie’ butterfly mural courtesy of Iain Alexander’s Floating Love is impossible to resist. Tribute acts and Gen Z-friendly dance anthem sessions pack the calendar. Such forward thinking has spread to surrounding golden sands: boards set out surfing etiquette and municipal electric barbecues are strategically placed to discourage the use of disposable trays.
Looking ahead, the pier is exploring virtual reality and shaping a regenerative-tourism strategy to cut waste and contribute more to local communities. Surveys spot upcoming trends, adds Mr Balcazar: ‘We are always going to nod to the Victorian past and British quirkiness, but it’s about making sure that the British pier still feels as relevant in 20 years as it does today.’
For more information visit the National Piers Society's website here
This feature originally appeared in the June 17, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe