Swanage Pier

The first Swanage Pier, which was 750 feet long, was authorised by the (22 & 23 Vict. c. lxxvii) and built between 1859 and 1860 for use primarily by the local stone quarrying industry and included a tramway which ran the length of the pier and some way along the seafront. The old tracks can be seen to this day, inset into the seafront walkways. When local businessman George Burt introduced regular steamer services between Swanage and nearby towns Poole and Bournemouth in 1874, a need became apparent for a second pier to be built primarily for use by passenger steamers. Construction on the new pier began in 1895, and by 1896 was first used by a steamer. The pier was officially opened for…

Today the pier is open to the public once again. Small scale ferry services run daily throughout the summer season, mainly to Poole Quay. The pier also hosts a successful diving school, the oldest in the UK, and is visited annually by historic steamers including the Waverley paddle steamer. The pier is a popular training site for scuba diving because it is one of the few sheltered marine diving sites on the south coast, and it has depths of only 4 m. The Marine Conservation Society South East also use the pier as a location for its training dives during their Marine identification and underwater photography courses, due to the wide range of marine life found under the pier. The site has…