A Brief History of Teignmouth Pier 

Teignmouth Probus Club invited Chris Inch, the current Probus and u3a Speaker Secretary, to present his talk on the history of Teignmouth’s seaside pier.

Chris commented that he was very thankful to his good friend Viv Wilson MBE, whose book, with its amazing photographs was the ‘go to’ reference for much of his presentation.
The first recorded pier in England was at Ryde in 1814.  A total of 84 piers were constructed over the next 143 years with the only post war pier built was at Deal in 1957.
The Principal Engineer responsible for the design and construction of Teignmouth Pier was Joseph William Wilson (no relation to Viv). Teignmouth’s pier was the 13th Pier to be built in 1865 shortly after engineer Wilson was involved in the construction of Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition in 1851.  The Earl of Devon paid £8000 pounds for its construction (more than £10m in today’s money) and assisted in driving home the first screw piles for the build.  Teignmouth Pier was the focal point of so much entertainment throughout the years and at 700 feet long, with a 300 seat pavilion with a sprung maple dance floor, people came from far and wide to trip the light fantastic in the pavilion.
Although you can't imagine an event today like Peg leg Pete, who would climb on a gantry mounted on the Pier, set himself on fire and then cycle off the end into the sea. "What a talent" I hear you cry!
However, over the last 160 years, the Pier has had to endure all that nature could throw at it, and as we know nature is unrelenting. It now stands a skeleton of its former glory with only some 200 feet of currently usable space.
The Pier has been in the private ownership of the Brenner family since 1961 and like so many piers around England it would need a vast amount of capital to restore it to its former glory even if that was remotely feasible.  Its future rests in the hands of the family that own it, unless nature condemns it to the sea.

Past Chairman Dave Kirk thanked Chris for a most interesting talk about our local history, probably the best since his own talk about Dutch Elm Disease!

Press Officer Rick Purnell was not at this meeting.  Material provided by Speaker Chris Inch with thanks.