Category Archives: Night Time

One of my favourite coastal locations has got to be Hastings, I find the old town and coast line fascinating. Everything from the rugged costal area past Rock-A-Nore, the working beach and fishing boats, to the old pier and bottle alley.

I quite often find myself in Hastings with camera in hand finding new things to document, and also attempting to improve on past shots that I feel have a little more life or impact to be found.

One of the most fascinating things for me in Hastings (or any other coastal location that contains one..) is the pier, I think it is a wonderful structure that has survived very well bearing in mind what has been thrown at it over the years….. Storms, Corrosion, Wind and Fires. Unlike some piers Hastings managed to survive a fire within the original 200 seater pavilion, which destroyed the pavilion in 1917.

The design of the pier itself is similar to most surviving piers of the period and was the brainchild of one Eugenius Birch who introduced the startling new innovation of attaching screw blades to the base of iron piles and screwing the piles into the seabed. Previously the supporting structures of piers has been of wooden construction and the wooden posts had been hammered into the seabed. The old supporting structure of the pier would have been a kind of suspension bridge in effect called a “Chain Pier”.

Birch’s innovation of fitting screw blades to the bottom of the iron piles enabled piers to be constructed that were safer, larger and longer lasting than previous designs.

Among the piers designed by Birch are iconic structures like :- Blackpool North, Eastbourne and Weston-Super-Mare. Other designed by Birch are Aberystwyth, Deal, Hornsea, New Brighton. The most famous of them all being the West Pier at Brighton.

Brightons West Pier with its oriental octagonal kiosks and the long ornate lines of seats was widely admired, and much copied. Today of course, its a tumbledown wreck, that was shut in 1975. The remains of Birch’s most famous pier can still be seen standing defiantly on its original iron screw piles, even after years of punishment from wind, rain, driving sea’s and multiple fires.

There is no denying that the piers designed by Birch are very impressive structures, however they are not the only things credited to this forward thinking and innovative designer other successes are, The Devon and Somerset Railways, Exmouth Docks, Ilfracombe Harbour and West Surrey Waterworks.

Without Birch’s designs and ingenuity Britain’s coastline would look different today and lacking that something special.

Below is a Youtube video that has been compiled of images from throughout the history of Hastings Pier, an interesting watch however I apologise for the accompanying music.

[youtube width="490" height="420"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRAdurO03u8[/youtube]

Hastings is also the location of another pioneering designer and recycler…. Mr Sidney Little, nicknamed the “Concrete King” Sidney built much of Hastings iconic promenade features we wander past and through today. The most talked about being Bottle Alley which is todays name for the half mile long double decked promenade stretching from the pier to warrior square. The rear walls of the lower deck of the structure are faced with glass from broken bottles, hence the name “Bottle Alley”. Other structure designed and built by Sidney Little include the underground car parks and some of the sea defences. Materials used in many of these structure consisted of recycled tramway granite sets, old tram rails an many other things.

If you have some spare time and are looking for an enjoyable day out, why not jump in the car and visit Hastings, if you are lucky you will arrive when the weather is great and the tide is low, enabling you and the family to go Rock Pooling out past Rock-A-Nore. But what ever the weather there is always plenty of things to do at Hastings.