In praise of Eugenius Birch

Elegant, exalted, masterfully engineered – but sadly not eternal.  Eugenius Birch’s piers once graced the length of south England’s coastline from Margate to Plymouth.

Hastings Pier succumbed to fire in 2010.  In the aftermath of that blaze, Howard Jacobson wrote a fond tribute to him, saying: “We are massively in his debt. The seaside looks the way it looks, actually and ideally, thanks in no small measure to Eugenius Birch.”

Birch was an engineer, and with his brother built railways, bridges and viaducts across England.  He also travelled to India to build railways for the East Indian Railway Company – a trip which doubtless influenced the oriental design of the original ballroom on Hastings Pier.  It was seminal in some ways: it was the first British pier to have a grand pavilion, and the first to have it included as an integral part of the design.

As well as stylish, his piers were also stable thanks to his use of Alexander Mitchell’s helical screw - screw-piling the iron supports into the sea bed rather than hammering them in.

Writer Jonathan Glancy called them “robust but whimsical structures … he knew how to build delightfully and well.  His works adorn rather than destroy views from our promenades.  They heighten rather than diminish the strength of the sea.”

But this does not mean they were invincible – of his 14 piers built between 1856 and 1884, just Blackpool’s North Pier now operates – and that was left in tatters by last December’s storms.

One of the many, and perhaps the main, reasons the restoration of Hastings Pier is so important.

- See more at: http://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2014/07/31/in-praise-of-eugenius-birch/32556#sthash.9HVSEqr1.dpuf