St Annes Pier

Back on the Fylde today - Blips were few and far between. Walking along the promenade to take my Aunt & Uncle for lunch I seriously thought about blipping the monstrosity that is now St Annes Pier - this once magnificent Victorian structure of iron and timber has struggled for all the time I've been visiting St Annes. When it was built it was over nine hundred feet long - but major fires in '74 & '82 damaged it greatly and it now stands at around six hundred. For most of my youth various owners tried to make a go of it - but this was before there was much funding to protect this kind of thing and they all (to the best of my knowledge) slowly went bust. Then a few years ago - in what I can't believe wasn't a planning nightmare - it was encased in poorly designed pvc double glazing and turned into a lowest common denominator amusement arcade. It continues to trade - so what do I know.

Strangely I couldn't bring myself to acknowledge it even with a Blip and a rant - so instead you've got the old landing (I can only remember it being used for fishing) jetty - in my youth this was still attached to the pier - but after the fire in '82 the connection was demolished and now it stands alone another hundred or so feet from the end of the pier proper - probably thanking its lucky stars that it didn't receive the same treatment.