North Pier, Blackpool

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**North Pier**
North Pier, Blackpool (Nov. 2005)
Official name	North Pier
Type	Pleasure Pier with Landing Jetty
Design	Eugenius Birch
Construction	Blackpool Pier Company
Total length	1,650ft
Opening date	May 21, 1863
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North Pier is the oldest and largest of the three coastal piers in Blackpool, England.

1 Location
2 History
3 Construction and repair
4 External links

[edit] Location

The pier's name derives from the fact that it is the northernmost of the piers and perhaps because it is close to Blackpool North railway station - it is actually located only about 400 metres to the north of Blackpool Tower which roughly represent Blackpool's midline. The sea front is particularly straight and flat and so the pier's 500-metre length simply extends at right angles to the coastline, more or less level with the promenade.

[edit] History

North Pier was officially opened on 21 May 1863 with a grand ceremony attended by over 20,000 visitors. It was the second of the fourteen piers designed by Eugenius Birch (the first being Margate Pier), and is now the oldest of the few remaining examples of his work still in use. It was also the first of Birc's piers to be built by engineering firm Richard Laidlaw and Son of Glasgow.

Although the pier was primarily for leisure rather than seafaring, a landing jetty was built at the end in incremental stages between 1864 and 1867. These works increased the pier's length to its current 500 metres. The pier company themselves made use of the jetty by operating steamboat trips to nearby destinations.

North Pier was heavily adapted during the last quarter of the nineteenth century; both the "head" of the pier (the extreme seaward end) and the connection with the shore were widened to include music performance facilities and shops. The facilities, although repaired or reconstructed as necessary, remained much the same until the 1960s when the "Merrie England Bar" and an amusement arcade were constructed at the shore end of the pier. By this point, the pier had long since ceased to have any nautical use, but the jetty section was adapted for use as a helicopter pad in the late 1980s. A small tramway was also added to ease access to the views and facilities of the pierhead.

As mentioned above, North Pier is one of the few remaining examples of Birch's classic architecture and as such it now enjoys the status of a Grade II Listed building. It was also recognised as "Pier of the Year" in 2004 by the National Piers Society.

[edit] Construction and repair

The bulk of the pier is constructed from cast iron with a wooden deck laid on top. The cast iron piles on which the structure rests were inserted using Birch's innovative screw pile process; the screw-tipped piles were simply twisted into the sand until they hit bedrock. This made construction much quicker and easier and guaranteed that the pier had a solid foundation.

However, the structure has been damaged several times since it was built. It suffered a collision in 1892 and a moored vessel (Nelson's former flagship, HMS Foudroyant, no less) further damaged the pier in 1897 when it was driven onto Blackpool Sands and wrecked by a severe storm. The pierhead theatres have been particularly susceptible to fires; the 1874 "Indian" pavilion was destroyed by fire, as was its replacement. The 1939 theatre, still in use, narrowly avoided a similar end in 1985 when the early stages of a fire were noticed in time by performer Vince Hill.