Lancashire’s Lost Piers By Margaret Brecknell
Above: West End Pier Morecambe c. 1900
No trip to the seaside during the Victorian era was complete without a stroll down the pier and the chance to enjoy the entertainment on offer.
later came to be known, boasted a large pier-head, which made it an ideal pick-up point for the pleasure steamers that operated in Morecambe Bay. Such was the new pier’s popularity with holidaymakers
that within a couple of years the decision was taken to extend it. In April 1896 the first section of a new pier located at the West End of Morecambe’s Promenade
T
oday’s visitors to the northwest coast still like to tread the boards at Blackpool, Southport and St Annes. Sadly, however, several of the region’s other once grand seaside piers no longer exist. Here are those which have been lost to posterity. MORECAMBE’S CENTRAL & WEST END PIERS In November 1867 a meeting was held at the King’s Arms Hotel in Morecambe, at which it was agreed to make plans for a pier to ensure that the resort would remain “on a footing with other watering places”. Morecambe’s first pier was opened to the public in March 1869. Measuring some 912ft (278m) in length, the Central Pier, as it
50
LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE
Above: West End Pier Morecambe c. 1900
www.lancmag.com
