Blackpool Central Pier

The success of the North Pier prompted the formation of the Blackpool South Jetty Company one year later in 1864. Authorisation to build a pier was obtained in the confirmed by the Pier and Harbour Orders Confirmation Act 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. c. 58). Impressed with the construction of Blackpool Pier (North Pier), the company hired the same contractor, Richard Laidlaw and Son of Glasgow for the project. This time, however, the company used the designs of Lieutenant-Colonel John Isaac Mawson rather than those of Eugenius Birch. When the pier was opened on 30 May 1868, it was 503 yards in length, 131 yards of which was a landing jetty for use at low tide. The first manager of the pier was…

Central Pier is constructed mostly of cast iron with wooden decking. The piles on which the structure rests were driven using the screw pile method pioneered by Eugenius Birch. This involved twisting screw-tipped cast iron piles down through the sand until they hit bedrock. The materials and building techniques were similar to those used for North Pier but the structure of Central is a little more delicate in appearance. The pier has suffered relatively little damage save for fires in 1964 and 1973 which gutted the theatre buildings. The main structural alterations have been the removal of the obsolete 131 yards (120 m) low tide jetty in 1975 and the construction of the Ferris wheel in…