ISLANDS IN THE STREAM

While few of us will have come across Birnbeck, this small Somerset island has quite a story to tell. One which, hopefully, it set to continue with the return of the RNLI.

The remains of Birnbeck Island, with the town of Weston-super-Mare and the Grand Pier in the background

Image: Droneserve LTD/Shutterstock

Despite having the second highest tidal range in the world, which can result in some fearsome currents around the top of springs, the Bristol Channel is continuing to develop and grow as a major yachting area.

New marinas have been built, and more are being considered, with the area being described as the ‘finest grand gulf around Britain’, and on both the north and south coastlines there is plenty in the way of attraction and history for the cruising yachtsperson.

However, with the gulf exhibiting that classic funnel shape, aimed southwest out towards the Atlantic, the weather can be an issue and has been since the very earliest days. Little wonder then that back in the 1860s, the RNLI were pleased to hear of a new development that would make a perfect base for a new lifeboat station.

Building links Just to the north of the golden sands of Weston-super-Mare lies a small rocky island called Birnbeck, which could be accessed at low water by a natural causeway. By the 1840s, with the growth of Weston as a tourist hot spot, a suspension bridge was planned to link the island to the mainland, a distance of some 350m.

Work started, but first the stonemasons being employed went on strike, and then a winter storm destroyed the foundations that had been laid. This, though, was the golden era of Victorian Pier building and by the 1860s work had been started to build a pier utilising a number of new and clever innovations.

A jetty was also constructed on the seaward side of the island that would allow steamers to come alongside for the business of taking day trippers on what for many would be an all-new experience. Work was completed in 1867 and the pier, the only one in the UK to

Image: David Henshall

‘Mind the drop’ - The slipway for lifeboat launches ends well above the water level when the tide is out, with this being just one of the issues that will need to be addressed

link the mainland to an island, was opened with a great fanfare that saw many of the locals given a day off work to celebrate.

Part of that celebration undoubtedly involved marching bands performing on the pier, as their footsteps were enough to set up worrying oscillations, which were found to be linked to the novel construction. New metal braces were added, but marching bands were also banned from appearing on the pier. By now the buildings at both the mainland end and out on the island had been completed, with ‘Victorian Gothic’ being very much the style of the day.

RNLI station The RNLI now had their new station, with their first boat being held in ship like davits so that it could be launched, but after 20 years a new purposebuilt station and long slipway were constructed out on the island and for the next 120 years Birnbeck would be an essential and busy part of the RNLI’s activities on the Bristol Channel.

Over the next 30 years Birnbeck became a thriving hub of tourist activity, with more and more attractions being built out on the island itself. As well as a bar, merrygo-rounds, slides, a helter-skelter and other fairground attractions were added, along with a number of early moving projectors, though these did not put a picture up on a screen which was maybe just as well as some of these may well have been of the ‘what the butler saw’ form of entertainment.

Tens of thousands of tourists visited Birnbeck, each paying their 2p toll that gave them access to the pier. However, the success of Birnbeck would spawn a direct competitor with the so called ‘Grand Pier’, situated centrally on the seafront of Weston-super-Mare, opening in the early years of the Edwardian reign.

Although much bigger and grander, the deeper water at Birnbeck kept the pier busy with steamers, but the damage was already being done as the new venture pulled in the majority of the paying tourists. Change of use Between the wars both piers remained busy, as the era of the British seaside holiday grew towards a peak, but in the 1930s the storm clouds were already gathering and soon the beaches would be packed with barbed wire as new wartime measures were put in place.

The pier was given a new lease of life as it became HMS Birnbeck, but that was all the locals would be allowed to know. Security around the pier was tight, as it had been made home to the Department of Miscellaneous Weapons Development, which was staffed by various scientists and engineers. Probably the greatest claim to fame would now come with the site being fitted with a large catapult that allowed Barnes Wallis to conduct his experiments that would ultimately lead to the bouncing bomb and the Dambusters raid.

Wallis was by no means alone, as at various times HMS Birnbeck would house the author and innovator Nevil Shute (Norway), who did a great deal of research into rocket fired projectiles, and Dennis Wheatley, who was already famous as the writer of horror thrillers such as The Devil Rides Out.

Decline and hope Sadly, as the 1960s started to swing and the trend for holidays abroad grew, times got harder for the UK’s piers, and none more so than the Birnbeck, even with the short-term boost courtesy of a much-photographed visit by the Beatles, who were performing in the town.

Despite the pier and the associated buildings being granted Grade 2 listed status, a combination of storm damage and poor maintenance saw the site deteriorating even further. Although a number of clever plans for the regeneration of the pier were floated none would come to fruition to ‘save the pier’, a statement that would become something of a rallying call as by 1994 the parlous state of the walkway saw a complete and final closure.

A number of celebrities, among them the comedian John Cleese, would support the moves, but with the pier in private ownership, Lottery funding could not be used, despite the site being on the UK’s top ten list of sites at risk register.

After a lengthy legal process that saw a Compulsory Purchase Order being granted to North Somerset Council, in late 2021 Birnbeck was finally placed into public ownership, which should allow the much needed restoration funding (with figures starting at £16m) to be raised and the work to make the structure safe completed, with the very first tenant being the RNLI, who have already committed to returning to the island.

When this work is finally finished, for the yachts that cruise the Bristol Channel there should be a wonderful new venture to visit, one that is full of a history stretching back more than 150 years.