Birnbeck Pier

Birnbeck Pier stands on the Bristol Channel at Weston-super-Mare, linking the mainland to Birnbeck Island by a 317-metre iron pier. Designed by Eugenius Birch and opened in 1867, it is one of only six Grade II* piers left in England. The island itself is a small limestone outcrop once used for fishing with nets tied to wooden stakes. In 1819 two boys from Clevedon Court drowned when the tide cut them off while searching for shells. The pier once carried steamers from both sides of the channel, carrying 120 000 visitors in its first three months. The pier’s unusual cantilever structure rests on screw-pile foundations driven deep into the river bed. After a storm in 1903 parts were rebuilt, but by 1979 excursion boats had stopped calling and the pier closed in 1994. During the Second World War it became HMS Birnbeck, a naval research station testing Barnes Wallis’s bouncing bomb. The island’s fishing ‘stalls’ trapped fish until the 19th century, tended by workers who lived in huts and hired ‘gull-yellers’ to scare seabirds. Visitors today see the exposed ironwork of the pier at low tide, its lattice girders and angled piles still standing after more than a century. The gothic toll house and pierhead buildings, designed by local architect Hans Price, mark the landward end. On the island the remains of the amusement buildings and the concrete platform added in 1932 show where steamers once tied up. The fast tidal streams and brown water of the Severn Estuary make the crossing dramatic, while the rocky island offers a quiet spot away from the town’s seafront.