16 May 08 World’s Longest Pier

Why the sudden rash of photographs from England? Well, quite simply I was going through all my photographs, and I found a few that I might be of interest to you, dear readers, who come from all over the world, in any case.

Also, I guess I wanted to show that the good ‘ole US of A doesn’t have the biggest of quite everything!

There’s been a pier at Southend since 1830, when the local Aldermen decided that one was needed as many boats bring Londoners down river couldn’t call there due to the mudflats, particularly at low tide.

The original wooden pier was replaced by an iron structure in the 1870′s.

The pier has an interesting history, having suffered a number of major fires; a threat of closure in the 1980′s, and requisition by the Royal Navy during World War 2. There is now an RNLI lifeboat station at the pier head, which was built in 2000.

Southend Council are currently promoting the pier as part of its tourism drive, and for the time-being at least its future looks safe.

Oh, the length of the pier? It’s 1.341 miles long. For the metric heads, that’s 2,158 meters. It’s about a 25 minute walk.

Tags: aldermen, boats, closure, dear readers, England, fires, iron structure, lifeboat station, longest pier, low tide, mudflats, photographs, requisition, rnli lifeboat, royal navy, southend council, sudden rash, tourism, world war ii, world's longest pier