Birnbeck Pier on the Bristol Channel in Weston-super-Mare, England
© Stephen Davies/Adobe Stoc
End of the pier?
This peaceful but derelict pier, on England’s southwest coast, was a hub of activity back in its heyday. Designed by the famous pier builder Eugenius Birch, Birnbeck Pier – sometimes called the Old Pier – opened in Weston-super-Mare in 1867. Victorian day-trippers would arrive on steamships to enjoy fairground rides, a travelling cinema and a skating rink. Welsh visitors would turn up to buy a drink in the pier’s bars on a Sunday, a day when the sale of alcohol was banned over the border. You can still see the old lifeboat house and slipway on Birnbeck Island, a reminder of its history as a base for the RNLI. The Bristol Channel has the second-highest tidal range in the world and the island offered a good launching point for its lifeboats, which might otherwise have been cut off by mudflats at lower tides.
Related Images
Midnight sun at North Cape, Norway
View from the Great Ocean Road with the Milky Way, Victoria, Australia
The shoreline of Cahuita National Park, in Costa Rica
The shoreline of Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, Washington state
Mount Fuji and twin rocks (Ushitukiiwa) in Matsuzaki, Japan
Lighthouse at Cape Aniva, Sakhalin Island, Russia
Spring ice along the shore of Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba
Acadia National Park in Maine, USA
Bing Today Images
