Weston-Super-Mare's Grand Pier has now reopened. Here, I looked back at the old pavilion and forward to the rebuilding then still underway.
Last year, the Grand Pier in Weston-Super-Mare suffered a fire which destroyed its pavilion. Worse damage was prevented by employee Robert Tinker who went into the burning building to remove gas cannisters. The shops at the land end and the walkway reopened within days, and it was announced that the pavilion would be rebuilt. A new design has been chosen, and it is hoped that the Pier will fully reopen in 2010.
These photographs show the old pavilion. In fact, this was itself a replacement for an earlier building of 1904 which had been destroyed by fire in 1930. A landing stage added to the end of the peir in 1906, intended for boats from Cardiff arriving at low tide, had been little used and was removed after ten years.
The original building's theatre was replaced by a funfair in the second pavilion. It remained as such, with the addition of an amusement arcade, until the fire of 2008. The proposed replacement pavilion will feature rides, an amusement arcade, tearooms and an observation tower.
1 comment:
I love pleasure piers. They suggest that the Victorians knew something about leisure time activities that are not impossibly old-fashioned and irrelevant now. As long as arcade games don't dominate. The rides should be exciting, the tearooms should be gorgeous and affordable etc.
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