“ON Monday, there was inaugurated at Redcar what must prove a great boon for the pleasant little watering place and make it more attractive than it has been hitherto to the thousands who have gone thither in search of health or recreation,” began the Darlington & Stockton Times of 150 years ago, taking a long time to explain to its readers what it was on about.
“The long stretch of sand upon the shore has been almost the only promenade of the place. That is pleasant enough under certain circumstances but certainly not always agreeable.”
Redcar pier in its heyday stretching 1,300ft across the sand
By contrast, The Northern Echo was straight to the point. “Yesterday, the opening ceremony of the New Pier at Redcar took place,” it said, before taking its readers on a historical detour.
“Could the ghost of the peripatetic bookseller Hutton have visited the scenes he saw in the body, surprise might well have been felt,” said the Echo’s second sentence.
It was referring to a book published in 1810 – 63 years earlier – by William Hutton, a Birmingham paper merchant, who had described his visit to the sea when Redcar had only 160 red tiled houses, many of which had drifts of sand blown off the beach piling up to their eaves.
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“Redcar, however, is different now from the days when its population mustered not 500,” said the Echo.
Since the railway had arrived in Redcar in 1846, it had developed as a seaside resort, and on June 2, 1873, it entered the age of the pier.
Between 1860 and 1914, 91 pleasure piers were built around the British coast, with four appearing off North Yorkshire: 1,000ft Scarborough and 1,500ft Saltburn both opened in 1869, so Redcar obviously had to compete with its 1,300-footer – especially as only a few hundred yards to its north, its neighbour, Coatham, was planning a 2,000ft whopper.
The first piles for the pier had been driven into the Redcar sand in March 1870 but engineering difficulties were then encountered so it took more than three years before the pier was ready.
A 1920s postcard of Redcar with the pier in the background
“Redcar yesterday made holiday,” said the Echo, on June 3, 1873, as large crowds gathered to watch the opening of the pier. “Middlesbrough disgorged its irony thousands,” punned the reporter. “Richmond even sent its townsmen, dwellers in Darlington forsook the misnamed “drab town” for the nonce, and by special and ordinary train thousands assembled at Redcar.”
The pier’s most impressive feature was its horseshoe-shaped pierhead where there were 600 seats which were “so screened from the wind they will make a pleasant lounge, although a stiff breeze may meanwhile be blowing. They run round on the outside of the screen as well the inside, and the sea and coast may form the prospect on one side, or on the other scene may be confined to the somewhat snug semicircle within the screen”.
The wooden planked deck of the pier, said the D&S Times, formed “an excellent dancing ground and no doubt it will not be infrequently devoted to that exhilarating pastime”.
An Edwardian postcard of Redcar pier
Head, Wrightson of South Stockton, had built the pier for £6,250 with a further £1,000 spent on the wind screens. It had to be 1,300ft long so even at low tide there was 10ft of water at the pierhead to enable visitors to arrive on steamers.
The chairman of the Redcar Pier Company, Rear Admiral Thomas Chaloner, was forbidden by his medical advisors from leaving his home in Guisborough, so the honour of opening the pier was delegated to Mrs Emma Dawson of Weston Hall at Otley – the papers don’t explain her connection to the occasion.
Mrs Dawson’s opening of the pier “was announced to the inhabitants and the thousands of visitors who thronged the sands, or were afloat in the numerous boats which skimmed along the coast in the neighbourhood of the pier, by the mortars fired from the pier-head”.
The Echo concluded its report of the day by saying: “During the day, the pier was gaily decorated with flags and banners, and a constant stream of visitors poured on to it to enjoy the promenade, the sea breezes, and the unequalled views. It was computed that up to five o’clock, 5,000 visitors had passed the turnstile and gate.”
Two years later, Coatham pier opened, overtaking Redcar’s by some 500ft, but it was abandoned in 1899 after being hit by both passing ships and the financial collapse of its owners.
Scarborough’s pier only lasted until 1905.
The entrance to the pier in the 1970s, shortly before demolition
Redcar also suffered from ships colliding with it, but it maintained its full length until 1940 when, amid fears of the Germans invading along its timber decking, its central portion was removed.
More of a pimple than a pier: Redcar shortly before its demolition. Picture: Tony Marshall
Redcar council bought the remains in 1946 but it was allowed to decay so that by 1980, when it was declared unsafe and sold for scrap for £250, only 87ft of it remained – it was more of a pimple than a pier.
Now there is only a blue plaque to show for its existence although sometimes the sands part to reveal where, 150 years ago, its piles once marched out across the beach.
Through Redcar pier towards the Royal Hotel, August 27, 1968.
A sad sight on December 19, 1962
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