Herne Bay Pier was the third pier to be built at Herne Bay, Kent for passenger steamers. It was notable for its length of and for appearing in the opening sequence of Ken Russell's first feature film French Dressing. It was destroyed in a storm in 1978 and dismantled in 1980, leaving a stub with sports centre at the landward end, and part of the landing stage isolated at sea. It was preceded by two piers: a wooden deep-sea pier designed by Thomas Rhodes, assistant of Thomas Telford, and a second shorter iron version by Wilkinson & Smith.
Structural history
First pier
According to The Illustrated London News of 1850, Herne Bay had fewer than a dozen inhabitants at the beginning of the 19th century, until a military encampment prompted expansion of population. This small development in turn attracted visitors who disembarked via hoys from passing London-Margate steamers. After a few bumpy rides in hoys the visitors decided they needed a pier and family accommodation at Herne Bay, and so the first Herne Bay Pier began. At the behest of a group of investors led by Surrey building contractor George Burge who had worked for Thomas Telford at St Katharine Docks, a long and wide pier was designed and built by Telford's assistant Thomas Rhodes. Telford was building Whitstable harbour at the time. The first wooden pile was driven on 4 July 1831, and the structure was completed on 12 May 1832 at a cost of £50,000 (equivalent to £4.6 million in 2023) when the steamer Venus brought the first passengers, in the same decade as Telford Terrace, the Pier Hotel and the promenade.
It was built all of timber, with the piles being driven straight into the sea bed; it was "considered at the time the best specimen of pile-driving", and described as a "pier and breakwater". There was curved stone balustrading at the entrance, taken from old London Bridge which was demolished in 1831. A sail trolley vehicle running on tracks, powered by sail and foot and nicknamed Neptune's Car, ran the length of the pier from 13 June 1833, carrying passengers and baggage. When wind was inadequate as commonly happened, pier employees physically pushed the trolley. The pier's length was defined by the one-fathom draught of the paddle steamers and the shallow two-fathom depth of the sea even three quarters of a mile offshore at high tide. It was followed in 1861 by the railway station, and thus began the town's growth into a holiday resort. However, because the wooden piles were never protected by copper sheathing they suffered from shipworm. By 1850, many piles had been replaced with iron ones, or with wooden ones "prepared by Mr Payne's process" against shipworm, but as a whole they showed irreversible deterioration from 1860 onwards. Pier dues were considered expensive at 1s 6d. Subsequently, the first Herne Bay Pier Company failed due to competition between paddle steamers and the new railway which was opened on 13 July 1861, because previously most visitors arrived by steamer, then they all arrived by rail. The first pier was taken down in 1870 to 1871, long after the paddle steamers stopped coming in 1862.
Second pier
In February 1871 the Herne Bay Improvement Commissioners bought the Pier Approach for £100. In the same year they bought the first pier for £475, completed its demolition and gave a 99-year lease for the Pier Approach to the second Herne Bay Pier Company. The second pier was built in less than four months for £2,000 and opened on 27 August 1873 by the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Sydney Waterlow. Waterlow made an entrance, arriving by train with uniformed sheriffs and a retinue of "gorgeously clad" minions in purple, chocolate and green livery. His procession was led by the East Kent Militia to a town hall lunch, regatta, fireworks and dances with ten thousand celebrating locals. The pier was engineered by Wilkinson & Smith, built with cast iron piles filled with concrete, had a bandstand at the end and was only long: too short to land paddle steamers in spite of their shallow draught, but long enough for promenading and entertainment. It retained the London Bridge balustrade. Although the new pier authority, Herne Bay Pavilion Pier and Promenade Company, built a wooden theatre, shops, lavatories and ticket office across its entrance in June 1884 it made no money. The theatre was known as the Pavilion; it was designed by McInyre North and opened by Mrs C. Prescott-Westcar on 24 July 1884.