Coast

Shipping stone

The pier which you see today isn't the original Swanage Pier - a pier was built in 1859 to allow Purbeck stone, quarried in the surrounding hills, to be exported to London to feed the capital's appetite for building materials.

John Mowlem and other prominent local citizens decided to speed up the way that stone was moved around by building a pier to directly load the stone onto the ships - horses would pull carts of stone along the seafront to the pier. 

The tramlines to take stone to the Pier

 You can still see the tram tracks on parts of the seafront. 

But it didn't prove very successful as the local stone merchants were quite happy loading stone in the water, as they always had done, and weren't keen on paying pier tolls.

Daytrippers

It was as a holiday resort that Swanage's future really lay. 

George Burt started a paddle steamer boat service between Swanage, Poole and Bournemouth in 1871.

Paddle steamer trips proved so popular that a new, longer, pier had to be built – the 196 metre-long New Pier was opened in 1896 at a cost of £10,000.

The old pier was used for re-fuelling the paddle-steamers with coal but it soon fell into decay – you can still see the remaining wooden piles in the sea on the eastern side of the existing pier.

The Balmoral at the pier in 1906

The first paddle steamer to land at the new pier was the Lord Elgin and by 1905 10 steamers a day served Swanage. 

On a busy summer's day, over 11,000 passengers would have been landed on Swanage Pier, with paddle steamers battling for space. 

You could also get to France for 37p.

After World War I, the pier went into slow decline. The Gribble worm – a type of marine crustacean which bores into wood – caused massive damage to the wood under the surface of the water.

In 1940, as Britain faced the threat of Nazi invasion during World War II, the part of the pier nearest the land was dismantled to prevent it being used as a landing point by the Germans.

The pier falling into disrepair

Many of the paddle steamers themselves were drafted into service for the war effort.

In 1948, a new concrete section replaced the part that had been destroyed.

The last paddle steamer, the Embassy, left from Swanage pier in 1966 and as the Gribble worm continued to bore away at the pier, it fell into disuse and disrepair.

Phoenix

But the people of Swanage weren't prepared to let what was once an elegant landmark crumble into the sea. 

The opening of the restored Swanage Pier

The Swange Pier Trust was set up by a team of local volunteers who went about raising over £1 million to restore the structure of the pier and open it to walkers as well as anglers and divers once more. 

With the help of the National Lottery as well as a sponsor-a-plank scheme, the pier was re-opened in 1998 and now attracts 100,000 visitors a year.

Ekki wood was used for the promenade deck and Greenhart piles were used to support the structure. New railings and Victorian lamps have all been recast in original 1896 moulds.

A diving vessel at Swanage Pier

Underwater exploration

It is also home to the oldest diving school in England and novice and experienced divers use the pier to moor their boats before heading out to explore the countless shipwrecks around the Purbeck coastline.

Objects from wrecked ships are regularly found and brought to the surface - you could get lucky and find a bottle of fine French perfume which still has its scent, or if you're not so lucky and you come up with a bottle of 100-year-old Worcestershire sauce which the divers say is the most rancid thing you're ever likely to smell!

Stormy times

The Friends of Swanage Pier now fund the pier – a mainly volunteer team manage the site and are continuing to develop it as a major attraction for the town. 

They had their work cut out in the winter of 2004 when a storm wrecked the end of the pier – a sign of changing climate and severe storms which present new challenges for communities like Swanage all along our coast.

To find out more about Swanage Pier, local shipwrecks and the Swanage Lifeboat, visit the exhibition in the Marine Villas.  Then continue on the walk to Prince Albert Gardens.