Shot with a Nikon D300 and Sigma 10-20mm lens
Info from Wikipedia:
North Pier is the oldest and largest of the three coastal piers in Blackpool, England. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II listed building.
The pier’s name derives from the fact that it is the northernmost of Blackpool’s three piers. It is actually located only about 400 metres to the north of Blackpool Tower which acts as a rough representative of Blackpool’s midpoint. The sea front is particularly straight and flat and so the pier’s 500-metre length simply extends at a right angle to the coastline, more or less level with the promenade. There previously was an admission charge of 50 pence to access the board-walk section of the pier before 5:30pm, but it is now free admission.
North Pier was officially opened on 21 May 1863 with a grand ceremony attended by over 20,000 visitors. It was the second of the fourteen piers designed by Eugenius Birch (the first being Margate Pier), and is now the oldest of the few remaining examples of his work still in use. It was also the first of Birch’s piers to be built by engineering firm Richard Laidlaw and Son of Glasgow.
Although the pier was primarily for leisure rather than seafaring, a landing jetty was built at the end in incremental stages between 1864 and 1867. These works increased the pier’s length to its current 500 metres. The pier company themselves made use of the jetty by operating steamboat trips to nearby destinations.
In 1874, Richard Knill Freeman, an architect who specialised in winner design competition, was asked to design a North Pavilion. Subsequent fires mean that nothing now remains but it is known that the building was called the “Indian Pavilion” due to its decoration.
North Pier was heavily adapted during the last quarter of the nineteenth century; both the “head” of the pier (the extreme seaward end) and the connection with the shore were widened to include music performance facilities and shops. The facilities, although repaired or reconstructed as necessary, remained much the same until the 1960s when the “Merrie England Bar” and an amusement arcade were constructed at the shore end of the pier. By this point, the pier had long since ceased to have any nautical use, but the jetty section was adapted for use as a helicopter pad in the late 1980s. A small tramway was also added to ease access to the views and facilities of the pierhead.
As mentioned above, North Pier is one of the few remaining examples of Birch’s classic architecture and as such it now enjoys the status of a Grade II Listed building. It was also recognised as “Pier of the Year” in 2004 by the National Piers Society.