Birnbeck Pier
In its hey day Birnbeck Pier is a grade 2 listed Pleasure Pier (with RNLI lifeboat station located on the pier) in Weston-Super-Mare, England. The pier was designed by Eugenius Birch, and the gothic all house and pier head was designed by local architect Hans Price. Birnbeck Pier is on the Bristol Channel and is the only pier in the country to link mainland to an island (Birnbeck Island). Before the pier, you could get to the island in low tide, which created a walkway. (The original name for the pier was Bearn Back - old English words for burn and baec which means 'the spring book island,' however locals pronounced it be-arn beck, leading to its current name.) The idea of connecting mainland to the island came around in 1845, and a suspension bridge was designed by James Dredge. Construction on this started two years later and was based on the 'taper principle' using chains instead of cables, but due to a strike by the stonemasons at the time, what construction...
