On this day (19 October) in 1973, the seaward head of Palace Pier was catastrophically damaged during a violent gale. A seventy-tonne barge, being used to dismantle the old landing stage, broke free amid strong westerly winds and heavy seas. Dragging its moorings, the vessel was hurled against the pier and repeatedly struck the theatre pavilion at the pier head, causing devastating structural damage - see Wikipedia and Heritage Gateway.
At the time of the incident the pier head’s construction consisted of cast-iron screw-piles supporting a lattice of steel girders and rolled-steel joists, over which wooden deck planking was laid. The theatre pavilion sat on this structure, offering seating for around 1,500 to 1,800 patrons, and was reached via a broad deck extension over the sea. The barge impact was concentrated on the theatre and its supporting ironwork, causing failure of key structural members and partial collapse of the deck immediately seaward of the pavilion. However, the helter skelter, the ‘crazy maze’, a first aid post, a telephone box, and a bar cellar were all wrecked, and 25 of the pier’s piles were smashed.
The collision unleashed debris of heavy steel girders, cast-iron columns and wooden deck planks. Some deck sections became detached and sank, while large members dangled or fell onto the beach below (see below). The damage cost was estimated in contemporaneous reports at around £100,000 (in 1973 value) for structural repairs.
Emergency response involved sealing off the pier head to the public immediately. Maintenance crews and demolition contractors worked in hazardous, wave-swept conditions to stabilise the damaged end. Temporary shores and supports were installed beneath the damaged deck. The stranded barge was subsequently re-moored and removed only after the gale abated. The landing stage, long unused, was demolished in 1975, no longer viable after the impact.
In the aftermath the theatre pavilion was never reopened; the functional use of that section shifted away from theatre and concert use towards amusement arcade and ride-based layout. The event represents a technical turning point: structural loss of the theatre and support framing accelerated the pier’s transformation in use and reinforced the vulnerability of marine-based structures to drift-load impacts in gale conditions.
The images above have been taken from a striking video freely available on YouTube - The Storm of 1973 That Ravaged Brighton Pier by Tom Goes Nomad. Here is one viewer’s (@phaasch) comment on the video: ‘Wonderful feature, with some brilliant photographs. I remember all this so well. I was 13 at the time. The day after the storm, the beach all the way to Black Rock was a mass of wreckage, mostly pitch pine decking, silver painted onion domes, and bits of Moorish arches. It was a pitiful sight amongst the grey and the spray. But it was rebuilt, and I remember going into the theatre auditorium just once, and being knocked out by its beauty. The seats were dark blue plush, the decorations gilt and white.
But the worst thing was the coming back. One winter’s afternoon in 1986 I drove down from London with a girlfriend. I wanted to show her the town where I grew up. As we came along Marine Parade, the Pier came into view, and the theatre had gone. Vanished. No one ever said where to, just gone. I know we later sat on the beach in the dying yellow light of December, and I felt part of my childhood slip away. The rest of Brighton followed, bit by bit, over the coming years. Its an alien place, now.’
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