Worthing’s Ocean Bastion: The Story of Worthing Pier
By William Budd, 2nd Year History
Worthing Pier stands quite possibly as the most iconic aspect of Worthing Beach. For me, not the Edwardian era cinema, one of the oldest still operating in England, or the countless streets of regency architecture, but Worthing Pier, is the essential historical location in Worthing. Join me as we explore the over 160 years of history of this location so important to mine and many others’ childhood memories growing up in West Sussex.
The pier has existed in various configurations over time. Opened in 1862, the pier stood at just shy of 300 metres long, with the 5-metre-wide decking offering an attractive albeit narrow promenade into the waters of the English Channel. Soon to follow were some upgrades, with a toll booth built landside of the pier to collect the payment of those wishing to enter, along with small kiosks for the purchase of souvenirs. Major upgrades were instituted in the late 1880s for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, with a widening of the promenade deck to 9 metres, and the further widening of the end of the pier to a whopping 30 metres, in order to provide space for a pavilion to be built, as well as a slightly lowered landing deck. From this deck, a ferry would begin to operate the roughly 12-mile distance between the pier’s opposite number in Brighton. However, this marvel of Victorian engineering was to undergo the trials and tribulations of a construction standing in defiance of the natural division of land and water.
The storm of March 1913 was particularly vicious. As the day turned into night and the winds sped up, the promenade deck of the pier underwent increasing strain. Unable to withstand the strong winds, the narrower portion of the deck was swept away into the sea along with the supporting structure, leaving only the Southern Pavilion as an island a few hundred metres off the coast. Those familiar with the coast of West Sussex will know the image of the burnt-out West Pier of Brighton Beach. Worthing’s original pier after collapse looked similar to this, with just the seaward end of the pier standing on thin wooden supports, with no passage back to land.
It wouldn’t take long for the pier to be rebuilt, the structure which still stands to this day being finished just over a year after the storm. A new pavilion soon followed, built in the early 1920s this time at the landside end of the pier, perhaps to prevent its loss in another accident. This pavilion remains the main theatre in Worthing, with countless shows, concerts and more held throughout the year. The building of a landslide pavilion turned out to be a fine piece of foresight. In 1933, a fire broke out in the Southern Pavilion which had been repaired after the storm incident, destroying it. In the seemingly consistent spirit of the importance of the pier and readily available funds, the pavilion was quickly replaced with a new one.
From this point onwards, the physical structure has remained largely unchanged to the modern day. However, I couldn’t write this piece without telling my favourite pier related urban legend. Having been told since childhood that the pier had a large hole blown in the centre of it during WW2 to ‘make the Germans think they’d already bombed Worthing’, my now slightly more logical brain tells me this is quite an unlikely scenario. Slightly more believably, the pier did actually have a hole blown in it, but it was to prevent its use as a landing area with fears of a potential seaborne invasion.
Whilst that last story is quite silly, it is the connections between periods in history and places featuring in day-to-day life which draw so many to history. Not just a photograph in a textbook, or location featured in a documentary, the physical existence of history in every part of life is what makes the study of history so interesting. This is Worthing Pier for me, with stories about its various existences soundtracking my childhood, and I’m sure the childhoods of many others.