The Palace Pier

The Palace Pier is a pleasure pier and associated structures located on Madeira Drive in Brighton. Built between 1891 and 1901, it was designed by R St George Moore for the Brighton Marine Palace and Pier Company, with later work by Sir John Howard from 1898 onwards. Arthur Mayoh of Manchester served as the builder. The structure has been added to in 1906, 1910–1911, and 1930, with restoration and further additions in circa 1945, circa 1973, and since 1984.

The pier is constructed of steel, cast-iron and wrought-iron, with kiosks and buildings of wood and metal. Many of the roofs are made from tin pressed to resemble fishscale tiles. The structure measures 1,650 feet in length with a width varying from 45 feet to 189 feet at the pier head.

The entrance area is semicircular in plan and has been paved in red brick since 1984. Stalls line the border of the crescent, terminating to the south in octagonal kiosks. Octagonal kiosks to the north date to the late 19th century and were formerly part of the original Aquarium, removed when the entrance was rebuilt in circa 1927. The entrance features a flat-arched archway with a mansard roof and clock, added in 1930 to replace three iron-work arches that were removed to allow for widening of the promenade.

A glazed windscreen runs along the north of the entrance, forming the centre spine of the pier and interrupted by various buildings. This windscreen is supported by pairs of cast-iron columns and, at several points, by original iron-work gates, now much damaged, which once spanned the promenade. Cast-iron railings of late 19th or early 20th century design run the entire length of the pier.

The first range of the windscreen contains 12 bays, with the partition bowing out to form five lozenge-shaped kiosks. Near the south end of the first windscreen range, the pier widens; the corners are marked by a pair of octagonal kiosks with ogee metal roofs that served as toll booths from the Chain Pier, which collapsed in December 1896.

The largest extant original structure on the pier is the former Winter Garden of the late 19th century, now called the Palace of Fun. The original exterior was designed in Moorish style to echo the Royal Pavilion, though the structure was sheathed in vinyl aluminium sheeting since 1984. In plan it comprises a low rotunda at the centre with rectangular, nave-like structures projecting from the north and south along a central axis aligned with that of the promenade.

The interior features cast-iron columns strutted out from the side walls of the nave spaces to form vestigial aisles. Each pair of columns supports an open-web, single-span metal truss in the form of a segmental arch, with the ceiling boarded. The rotunda is supported by similar columns and is much higher than the axial naves, with a continuous entablature running all around it. The structure likely dates to the 1910–1911 remodelling.

Just north of the Palace of Fun, the pier narrows again with the promenade once more divided by the central windscreen. Spanning the pier at this point are the first of several original iron-work and arched gateways, each of five bays with the centre and end openings being far wider than the intermediate bays. Further along, in the fourth bay of the centre windscreen, the pier widens again to accommodate a group of kiosks now covered in sheeting, with some original cast-iron studs and ornament surviving. Originally it was possible to walk around these kiosks on a narrow platform, now gone. The 15th bay of the windscreen contains the remains of another iron-work gateway, while the 18th and final bay of this stretch serves as the base for another iron-work gateway of nine bays, spanning the promenade as it broadens again.

Beyond this archway is a single-storey building of late 19th or early 20th century date housing a restaurant and bar, with a three-part plan comprising a roughly square centre section and wings to the north and south. The low roofs over the north and south wings are hipped with iron-crested eaves and ridges; the centre roof is six-sided and steps up to an iron weather vane enclosing a revolving mirrored ball. This structure likely dates to the 1910–1911 remodelling.

To the south, the narrowing of the pier is marked by the remains of a nine-bay iron-work archway. The centre windscreen resumes, with the remains of a five-bay iron-work archway between its 11th and 12th bays; this range of windscreen contains other iron-work remains comparable in date to the gateways noted above.

At the end of this range the pier steps out again; near the angles are a pair of late 19th century facilities with hipped roofs, cast-iron valence boards and pilasters with cast-iron brackets above.

The site of the 1901 Palace Pier Theatre follows. This structure was severely damaged in 1973 when a barge tore loose from its moorings and partly wrecked the theatre and surrounding decking. The theatre had been girded by Moorish arcades and contained a very exotic interior; it was demolished in 1986 and replaced by the current Pleasure Dome, supported by a tubular steel geodesic grid which does not form part of this listing.

The pier head itself is the widest area of the pier. With the exception of four onion domes now covered in sheeting, very little of the late 19th or early 20th century structures survive. The pier itself was extended in 1938.

The Brighton Marine Palace and Pier Company was formed in 1889 on condition of the demolition of the old Chain Pier, which was located nearby at the bottom of New Steine. A storm in December 1896 destroyed the Chain Pier, sweeping parts of it into the Palace Pier and damaging Volks Railway and the West Pier. The first phase of the Palace Pier's construction was completed in 1901; the original theatre was the focus of the pier and contained, in addition to a concert hall seating 1,800 people, dining, smoking and reading rooms. The pier was damaged during the war and reopened in 1946. The storm damage of 1973 proved quite severe; repairs completed in 1976 did not restore the structure to its original opulence. It was purchased in 1984 by the Noble Organisation, which embarked on a two-year refurbishment programme.