Llandudno Pier

Date

15 March 2015

Location

Llandudno

Information

Llandudno’s first pier – a 74m timber-built industrial jetty – was completed in 1858. It was, however, badly damaged in the 1859 ‘Royal Charter’ storm and was later superseded by the current Victorian pleasure pier built by the Llandudno Pier Company, established in 1875. The pleasure pier was designed by architect Charles Henry Driver (1832-1900) and civil engineers James William Brunlees (1816-1892), who served as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1883, and Alexander McKerrow (1837-1920).

With a wooden planked deck and steel superstructure supported by cast-iron piles, the pier was fabricated by Glasgow iron foundry Walter Macfarlane & Co and was completed in two stages. The first, 376m in length, with its entrance at the stone lodge on Happy Valley Road, opened in 1877. An extension spur, running parallel to the shore by the Baths Hotel, which was rebuilt and re-opened as the Grand Hotel in 1902, was added in 1884. This provided a second entrance to the pier from The Parade.

The iron-and-glass Pier Pavilion, which burned down in 1994, was built close to the second pier entrance next to the Baths Hotel and was completed in 1886. A small orchestra, formed when the pier first opened, originally performed at a bandstand at the pier head but later took up residence in the Pier Pavilion.

A deep-water landing stage was added at the pier head in 1891 allowing steam ships to dock there. In addition to local pleasure cruises, services also ran from the pier to Liverpool and the Isle of Man. The landing stage was rebuilt in concrete and steel in 1969 and was eventually closed on safety grounds owing to its deteriorating condition in 2005. In June 2012, however, it was announced that more than £330,000 was being invested in a new landing stage to allow cruise ships to return to the town. £200,000 of the funding was awarded from the tourism fund set up by the owners of Gwynt y Mor offshore wind farm.

On 12 March 2015, Cuerden Leisure, the pier’s current owner, announced that it was selling the pier together with Blackpool’s South and Central piers with a collective asking price of £12.6 million, the individual guide price for Llandudno Pier being £4.5 million.

Llandudno Pier is a Grade II* listed structure and with an overall length of 700m is the longest pier in Wales.