Eastbourne Pier, East Sussex, England

© Robert Harding World Imagery/Offset by Shutterstoc

Info. Eastbourne Pier

Welcome to Eastbourne Pier on England's south coast. This Victorian pier has been entertaining visitors and providing sweeping views of the English Channel since it opened in 1872. Like many British piers, it has been through rather a lot since then.

It had not long been open when much of its shoreward end was swept away by a storm in 1877 and had to be rebuilt at a higher level. The pier was damaged by an exploding mine in the 1940s, its theatre was destroyed by fire in 1970, and another devastating fire in 2014 destroyed its large games arcade. Since then, the damaged buildings have been replaced by an open deck area. The pier is about 300 metres long and was built on stilts which rest in cups on the seabed, allowing the whole thing to move in rough weather.