Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2011/January 2012 | Page 70
ON THE WATER
the longest pier. A second 'tramway'
pier was built next to the first pier,
opening in 1864, and allowing
horse-drawn trams to take passengers
from the pier head to the esplanade.
Then in 1880 a third pier was opened,
alongside the first two, providing
a direct steam railway link to the
pier-head.
Island historian Adrian Searle
explained: “The opening of Ryde
Pier in 1814 was the defining event
in the development of a town which
hitherto had been effectively barred to
the masses because of the difficulties
of access. “Little more than two
isolated hamlets in the 18th century,
Ryde had been 'discovered' by the
aristocracy in the years preceding the
pier's construction. The fine marine
residences they built as summer
retreats remain as faded, yet still
elegant, reminders of the town's
fashionable origins. “But it was the
building of the pier, sufficiently long
to allow access at all states of the tide,
which established Ryde as a 'gateway'
to the Island for the wider population
and paved the way for the town itself
to develop as a desirable location for
both residents and tourists. ”Ryde Pier
was integral to the key subsequent
phases of the town's developing
transport infrastructure. After the
railway opened to Shanklin in 1864,
a second pier, immediately east of
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the original promenade decking, was
opened to allow a horse tramway to
operate along its length and through
the town to connect with the original
station at Ryde (St John's Road).
“Then, with the intervention of the
big mainland rail companies, who
brought hordes of passengers to their
cross-Solent ferries at Portsmouth,
the railway pier was added at Ryde in
the 1880s as part of a major scheme
to open up considerably enhanced
ferry-train connections on the Island
– ending the short life of the pier
tramway's town section in the process.
”Although the tramway pier, which
survived the opening of the new
railway, has not operated as such since
1969, overall Ryde Pier continues to
perform a vital transport function –
something which leaves it uniquely
placed among the surviving seaside
piers of England. Ryde built the
nation's most important pier. The pier
built Ryde. The two are synonymous.”
The pier continued to be a vital link
between the mainland and the Island,
and it was re-modelled using concrete
in the 1930s, and by the mid 1950s
the Ryde-Portsmouth service was in
its heyday with queues on a Saturday
regularly stretching the whole length
of the pier and into Union Street.
The pier was made a Grade II listed
building in 1976, and subsequently
Wightlink catamarans run regularly
between Ryde and Portsmouth, and it
is possible to drive along the pier, with
car parking on the large pier head.
However, that was brought to a
temporary halt from August 2010
to March 2011, when the pier was
closed to all vehicles as structural work
underneath the promenade pier failed
to pass a regular inspection.
The pier did stay open to
pedestrians, who used temporary
decking on the tramway pier whilst
much of the promenade pier was
being renewed. After the £5million
project was completed a toll charge of
£1 for vehicles was introduced along
with a height and weight restriction,
and average speed cameras were also
installed.
For a few decades Ryde also had
the Victoria Pier, which stood a few
hundred yards to the east of the
original one. That pier opened in 1864
but as it was much shorter it could
not be used in all tides. So in 1875
the ferry service ceased and Victoria
Pier became a pleasure pier only, with
public baths at the ‘wet end’ and a
swimming platform at the ‘dry end’.
However, it fell into disrepair and
because it was later considered a
hazard its demolition was authorised
by Act of Parliament during the First
World War, and within a few years it
had disappeared completely with not a
single trace remaining.