Mumbles Pier, Swansea, Wales
© Helen Hotson/Shutterstoc
Pier-ing into the past. Mumbles Pier, Swansea, Wales
What do you get when a railway, a lifeboat station and a seaside day out meet at the water's edge? Mumbles Pier. Stretching 255 metres into Swansea Bay, this Victorian landmark opened on 10 May 1898 and has been part of the Welsh coast ever since.
The pier was the western terminal of the Swansea and Mumbles Railway, which is celebrated as the world's first regular passenger railway service. Today, the railway has disappeared, but the Grade II-listed pier remains one of only six surviving iron seaside piers in Wales. It is also among the small number of privately owned piers still operating in the United Kingdom. Nearby, the Big Apple—an apple-shaped kiosk—adds another quirky landmark.
An RNLI lifeboat station has operated here for over a century, while the area remembers the tragic 1947 Mumbles lifeboat disaster. More than 125 years on, Mumbles Pier still has plenty of pull.
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