Dr Anya Chapman recently presented a paper entitled ‘Celebrating 200 years of the British Seaside Pier’ at the ‘Beside the Seaside’ conference in Scarborough.
The conference was hosted by the Seaside Heritage Network, which Anya is a founding member of. In her presentation, Anya looked at the historic development of British seaside pleasure piers, from their beginnings as humble landing stages, through to the ‘golden age’ of pier building. However, she highlighted that over the last 40 years some of the most iconic piers have been lost, and the situation is increasingly challenging for those that remain. Anya then went on to showcase four seaside piers (Bournemouth, Hastings, Penarth and Folkestone) which have recently rejuvenated and repositioned to become seaside heritage assets that are embracing the future.
Anya is truly a seaside pier aficionado, being an executive committee member of the National Piers Society, and having visited all 59 seaside piers in the UK. You can find out more about Anya’s journey around seaside piers here. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047pv5m