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52-614: The Grand Pier is a pleasure pier in Weston-super-Mare , North Somerset , situated on the Bristol Channel approximately 18 miles (29 km) southwest of Bristol . It opened in 1904 and has been Listed Grade II since 1983. It is 366 metres (1,201 ft) long. The pier's pavilion has been destroyed by fire on two occasions, in 1930 and 2008. It is one of two major piers in the town, along with Birnbeck Pier , which closed in 1994 and stands derelict. The pier

104-419: A £ 60,000 new pavilion three years later. This second pavilion housed a large undercover funfair rather than a theatre. The pier was sold in 1946 to Mr. A. Brenner, who went on to improve the pier's facilities, adding new shops and an amusement arcade to the pavilion in the early 1970s. As a result of the extra investment, the pier became a Grade II listed building in 1974. Brenner continued his ownership of

156-636: A 60-metre (200 ft) high bungee jump over the North Sea waves. The present pier is a successor of an earlier pier, which was completed in 1901 but in 1943 destroyed by the German occupation forces. The first recorded pier in England was Ryde Pier , opened in 1814 on the Isle of Wight , as a landing stage to allow ferries to and from the mainland to berth. It is still used for this purpose today. It also had

208-642: A leisure function in the past, with the pier head once containing a pavilion, and there are still refreshment facilities today. The oldest cast iron pier in the world is Town Pier, Gravesend , in Kent , which opened in 1834. However, it is not recognised by the National Piers Society as being a seaside pier. Following the building of the world's first seaside pier at Ryde, the pier became fashionable at seaside resorts in England and Wales during

260-666: A linear littoral quayside, and such piers are usually much shorter. Typically each pier would carry a single transit shed the length of the pier, with ships berthing bow or stern in to the shore. Some major ports consisted of large numbers of such piers lining the foreshore, classic examples being the Hudson River frontage of New York , or the Embarcadero in San Francisco . The advent of container shipping , with its need for large container handling spaces adjacent to

312-520: A local currency that is pegged to the U.S. dollar or the New Zealand dollar . The Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (in Cyprus ) use the euro. Since decimalisation on Decimal Day in 1971, the pound has been divided into 100 pence (denoted on coinage, until 1981, as "new pence"). The symbol for the penny is "p"; hence an amount such as 50p (£0.50) properly pronounced "fifty pence"

364-477: A new pier was built in 1933. It remained till the present day, but was partially transformed and modernized in 1999–2004. In Nieuwpoort, Belgium there is a pleasure pier on both sides of the river IJzer . Scheveningen , the coastal resort town of The Hague , boasts the largest pier in the Netherlands , completed in 1961. A crane, built on top of the pier's panorama tower, provides the opportunity to make

416-399: A penny", "two and a penny", etc. 5 shillings, for example, was written as "5 s ." or, more commonly, "5/–" (five shillings, no pence). Various coin denominations had, and in some cases continue to have, special names, such as florin (2/–), crown (5/–), half crown (2/6 d ), farthing ( 1 ⁄ 4 d ), sovereign (£1) and guinea (21s, 21/–, £1–1–0 or £1.05 in decimal notation). By

468-566: A pier has two decks. Galveston Island Historic Pleasure Pier in Galveston , Texas has a roller coaster, 15 rides, carnival games and souvenir shops. Early pleasure piers were of complete timber construction, as was with Margate which opened in 1824. The first iron and timber built pleasure pier Margate Jetty , opened in 1855. Margate pier was wrecked by a storm in January 1978 and not repaired. The longest iron pleasure pier still remaining

520-456: A pier presents a set of different circumstances to fishing from the shore or beach, as you do not need to cast out into the deeper water. This being the case there are specific fishing rigs that have been created specifically for pier fishing which allow for the direct access to deeper water. In Blankenberge a first pleasure pier was built in 1894. After its destruction in the World War I ,

572-501: A small fire and was evacuated, however the fire was contained and the pier reopened the following day. One scene from the film The Remains of the Day was filmed on the pier in 1992. The comedy television series Bliss filmed scenes on the pier in 2017. The reality television series Come Dine with Me , Don’t Tell the Bride and Flog It! , the news programme BBC Breakfast , and

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624-647: Is at Southend-on-Sea , Essex , and extends 1.3 miles (2.1 km) into the Thames Estuary . The longest pier on the West Coast of the US is the Santa Cruz Wharf , with a length of 2,745 feet (837 m). Providing a walkway out to sea, pleasure piers often include amusements and theatres as part of their attractions. Such a pier may be unroofed, closed, or partly open and partly closed. Sometimes

676-417: Is often pronounced "fifty pee" /fɪfti piː/. The old sign d was not reused for the new penny in order to avoid confusion between the two units. A decimal halfpenny ( ⁠ 1 / 2 ⁠ p, worth 1.2 old pennies) was issued until 1984 but was withdrawn due to inflation . Before decimalisation in 1971 , the pound was divided into 20 shillings , and each shilling into 12 pence , making 240 pence to

728-615: Is the central bank for sterling, issuing its own banknotes and regulating issuance of banknotes by private banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Sterling banknotes issued by other jurisdictions are not regulated by the Bank of England; their governments guarantee convertibility at par . Historically, sterling was also used to varying degrees by the colonies and territories of the British Empire . There are various theories regarding

780-578: Is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound ( sign: £ ) is the main unit of sterling, and the word pound is also used to refer to the British currency generally, often qualified in international contexts as the British pound or the pound sterling . Sterling is the world's oldest currency in continuous use since its inception. In 2022, it

832-477: Is the one at Southend. First opened as a wooden pier in 1829, it was reconstructed in iron and completed in 1889. In a 2006 UK poll, the public voted the seaside pier onto the list of icons of England. Many piers are built for the purpose of providing boatless anglers access to fishing grounds that are otherwise inaccessible. Many "Free Piers" are available in larger harbors which differ from private piers. Free Piers are often primarily used for fishing. Fishing from

884-525: The Bristol architects Angus Meek won the contract to design the new pavilion on 15 October. North Somerset Council approved the plans on 12 March 2009. Contractors John Sisk and Son were selected to construct the new pavilion, which was expected to be completed by June 2010. Following delays, it instead opened in time for half-term break on 23 October 2010, having cost £ 39,000,000. The opening day attracted more than 52,000 visitors, and an estimated 100,000 for

936-529: The Victorian age . Piers can be categorized into different groupings according to the principal purpose. However, there is considerable overlap between these categories. For example, pleasure piers often also allow for the docking of pleasure steamers and other similar craft, while working piers have often been converted to leisure use after being rendered obsolete by advanced developments in cargo-handling technology. Many piers are floating piers, to ensure that

988-571: The Victorian era , peaking in the 1860s with 22 being built in that decade. A symbol of the typical British seaside holiday, by 1914, more than 100 pleasure piers were located around the UK coast. Regarded as being among the finest Victorian architecture, there are still a significant number of seaside piers of architectural merit still standing, although some have been lost, including Margate , two at Brighton in East Sussex , one at New Brighton in

1040-971: The Wirral and three at Blackpool in Lancashire . Two piers, Brighton's now derelict West Pier and Clevedon Pier , were Grade 1 listed . The Birnbeck Pier in Weston-super-Mare is the only pier in the world linked to an island. The National Piers Society gives a figure of 55 surviving seaside piers in England and Wales. Pound sterling King Charles III [REDACTED] William, Prince of Wales [REDACTED] Charles III ( King-in-Council ) [REDACTED] Starmer ministry ( L ) Keir Starmer ( L ) Angela Rayner ( L ) ( King-in-Parliament ) [REDACTED] Charles III [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] The Lord Reed The Lord Hodge Andrew Bailey Monetary Policy Committee Sterling ( ISO code : GBP )

1092-507: The health of sandy beaches and navigation channels . Pleasure piers were first built in Britain during the early 19th century. The earliest structures were Ryde Pier , built in 1813/4, Trinity Chain Pier near Leith, built in 1821, Brighton Chain Pier , built in 1823. and Margate Jetty 1823/24 originally a timber built pier. Only the oldest of these piers still remains. At that time,

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1144-657: The 1950s, coins of Kings George III , George IV and William IV had disappeared from circulation, but coins (at least the penny) bearing the head of every British monarch from Queen Victoria onwards could be found in circulation. Silver coins were replaced by those in cupro-nickel in 1947, and by the 1960s the silver coins were rarely seen. Silver/cupro-nickel sixpences, shillings (from any period after 1816) and florins (2 shillings) remained legal tender after decimalisation (as 2½p, 5p and 10p respectively) until 1980, 1990 and 1993 respectively, but are now officially demonetised. The pound sterling emerged after

1196-469: The Bank of England has exclusively used the single bar variant since 1975. Historically, a simple capital L (in the historic black-letter typeface, L {\displaystyle {\mathfrak {L}}} ) placed before the numerals, or an italic l. after them, was used in newspapers, books and letters. The Royal Mint was still using this style of notation as late as 1939. The glyphs Ł and Ⱡ may occasionally be encountered. Use of

1248-457: The League's money was not frequently debased like that of England, English traders stipulated to be paid in pounds of the "Easterlings", which was contracted to "'sterling". The OED dismisses this theory as unlikely, since the stressed first syllable would not have been elided. Encyclopædia Britannica states that the (pre-Norman) Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had silver coins called sterlings and that

1300-505: The Roman libra , solidus , and denarius . Notable style guides recommend that the pound sign be used without any abbreviation or qualification to indicate sterling (e.g., £12,000). The ISO 4217 code "GBP" (e.g., GBP 12,000) may also be seen should disambiguation become necessary. The ISO 4217 currency code for sterling is "GBP", formed from the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code for

1352-659: The United Kingdom ("GB") and the first letter of "pound". In historical sources and some specialist banking uses, the abbreviation stg (in various styles) has been used to indicate sterling. Many stocks on the London Stock Exchange are quoted in penny sterling, using the unofficial code "GBX". The exchange rate of sterling against the US dollar is referred to as "cable" in the wholesale foreign exchange markets . The origins of this term are attributed to

1404-546: The adoption of the Carolingian monetary system in England c.  800 . Here is a summary of changes to its value in terms of silver or gold until 1816. The pound was a unit of account in Anglo-Saxon England . By the ninth century it was equal to 240 silver pence . The accounting system of dividing one pound into twenty shillings , a shilling into twelve pence, and a penny into four farthings

1456-478: The common phrase "quids in"). Its origin is unknown: possible derivations include scudo , the name for a number of currency units used in Italy until the 19th century, introduced by Italian immigrants; or from Latin quid via the common phrase quid pro quo , literally, "what for what", or, figuratively, "An equal exchange or substitution". The term "nicker" (also both singular and plural) may also refer to

1508-468: The compound noun pound sterling was derived from a pound (weight) of these sterlings. The English word pound derives from the Latin expression lībra pondō , in which lībra is a noun meaning 'pound' and pondō is a noun, in the ablative case , meaning 'by weight'. The currency sign for the pound unit of sterling is £ , which (depending on typeface) may be drawn with one or two bars :

1560-584: The cookery television series Saturday Kitchen have also filmed at the pier. The pier won the National Piers Society Pier of the Year award in 2001, and again in 2011, becoming the first pier to win the award twice. Pier#Pleasure piers Piers have been built for several purposes, and because these different purposes have distinct regional variances, the term pier tends to have different nuances of meaning in different parts of

1612-430: The fact that from the mid-19th century, the sterling/dollar exchange rate was transmitted via transatlantic cable. Historically almost every British coin had a widely recognised nickname, such as "tanner" for the sixpence and "bob" for the shilling . Since decimalisation these have mostly fallen out of use except as parts of proverbs. A common slang term for the pound unit is " quid " (singular and plural, except in

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1664-423: The fire started due to a number of deep fat fryers which had been located within the pavilion; however after further investigation this was later ruled out, as was arson. On 22 October 2008 at a news conference held by the fire brigade it was announced that the cause of the fire would be recorded as unknown, but that the most likely cause was electrical. Work began dismantling the wreckage on 12 September 2008, and

1716-599: The fishing and cargo industries and serves as a port for large cruise ships in the area. Many other working piers have been demolished, or remain derelict, but some have been recycled as pleasure piers. The best known example of this is Pier 39 in San Francisco . At Southport and the Tweed River on the Gold Coast in Australia , there are piers that support equipment for a sand bypassing system that maintains

1768-453: The introduction of steamships and railways for the first time permitted mass tourism to dedicated seaside resorts . The large tidal ranges at many such resorts meant that passengers arriving by pleasure steamer could use a pier to disembark safely. Also, for much of the day, the sea was not visible from the shore and the pleasure pier permitted holidaymakers to promenade over and alongside the sea at all times. The world's longest pleasure pier

1820-491: The letter ⟨L⟩ for pound derives from medieval Latin documents: "L" was the abbreviation for libra , the Roman pound (weight), which in time became an English unit of weight defined as the tower pound . A "pound sterling" was literally a tower pound (weight) of sterling silver . In the British pre-decimal ( duodecimal ) currency system, the term £sd (or Lsd) for pounds, shillings and pence referred to

1872-597: The origin of the word "sterling". The Oxford English Dictionary states that the "most plausible" etymology is a derivation from the Old English steorra for "star" with the added diminutive suffix -ling , to yield "little star". The reference is to the silver penny used in Norman England in the twelfth century, which bore a small star. Another theory holds that the Hanseatic League

1924-502: The pavilion was soon destroyed. Robert Tinker, a Grand Pier employee, was later praised by the fire brigade as he braved the extreme intensity of the heat from the flames to rush around the side of the building to remove several gas canisters which had been stored within the premises; had these not been removed the fire brigade claimed that the blaze could have been much worse, with the possibility of local residents and traders needing to be evacuated. Preliminary investigations suggested that

1976-422: The pier measuring 500 yards (1,500 ft) was opened, with the intention that the pier would be used as a docking point for boats to Cardiff . The dangerous currents in the bay made this too difficult, however, and the extension was demolished. The theatre at the pier's end was destroyed by fire on 13 January 1930. As the building was underinsured the pier was put up for sale and bought by Leonard Guy, who opened

2028-461: The pier stretching far enough off shore to reach deep water at low tide. Such piers provided an economical alternative to impounded docks where cargo volumes were low, or where specialist bulk cargo was handled, such as at coal piers . The other form of working pier, often called the finger pier, was built at ports with smaller tidal ranges. Here the principal advantage was to give a greater available quay length for ships to berth against compared to

2080-402: The pier until 6 February 2008, when it was sold to brother and sister partnership Kerry and Michelle Michael. The pier immediately underwent a multi-million-pound revamp, which included a new branding scheme. £ 1,000,000 was spent installing a new go-kart track, a fully licensed bar, and a climbing wall into the pavilion. At 01:35 BST on 28 July 2008, a fire at the foot of the north tower on

2132-603: The piers raise and lower with the tide along with the boats tied to them. This prevents a situation where lines become overly taut or loose by rising or lowering tides. An overly taut or loose tie-line can damage boats by pulling them out of the water or allowing them so much leeway that they bang forcefully against the sides of the pier. Working piers were built for the handling of passengers and cargo onto and off ships or (as at Wigan Pier ) canal boats. Working piers themselves fall into two different groups. Longer individual piers are often found at ports with large tidal ranges , with

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2184-554: The pound. The currency of all the Crown Dependencies ( Guernsey , Jersey , Isle of Man ) and a third of British Overseas Territories ( British Antarctic Territory ; Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands ; Gibraltar ; and Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha ) is either sterling or pegged to sterling at par. The other British Overseas Territories have

2236-602: The pound. The symbol for the shilling was " s ." – not from the first letter of "shilling", but from the Latin solidus . The symbol for the penny was " d .", from the French denier , from the Latin denarius (the solidus and denarius were Roman coins). A mixed sum of shillings and pence, such as 3 shillings and 6 pence, was written as "3/6" or "3 s . 6 d ." and spoken as "three and six" or "three and sixpence" except for "1/1", "2/1" etc., which were spoken as "one and

2288-513: The reign of King Offa of Mercia (757–796), who introduced a "sterling" coin made by physically dividing a Tower pound (5,400 grains, 349.9 grams) of silver into 240 parts. In practice, the weights of the coins were not consistent, 240 of them seldom added up to a full pound; there were no shilling or pound coins and these units were used only as an accounting convenience . Halfpennies and farthings worth 1 ⁄ 2 and 1 ⁄ 4 penny respectively were also minted, but small change

2340-504: The shipping berths, has made working piers obsolete for the handling of general cargo, although some still survive for the handling of passenger ships or bulk cargos. One example, is in use in Progreso, Yucatán , where a pier extends more than 4 miles into the Gulf of Mexico , making it the longest pier in the world. The Progreso Pier supplies much of the peninsula with transportation for

2392-524: The shoreward (eastern) end of the pavilion triggered the privately monitored fire alarm , but the Essex-based alarm monitoring company were unable to contact the key-holder by mobile phone and no further action was taken. It was not until 06:46 BST that the Avon Fire and Rescue Service was notified. It deployed 13 fire engines, special appliances, and more than 85 firefighters to tackle the blaze, but

2444-404: The whole weekend. The pier was officially reopened on 25 July 2011, by Anne, Princess Royal . In January 2013, security company System 2 Security Limited was proven in court to be responsible for the fire damage to the pier in 2008 due to negligence. Kerry and Michelle Michael, the pier owners, were awarded £ 30,000,000 by a judge at Bristol Mercantile Court. On 10 March 2019, the pier suffered

2496-531: The world. Thus in North America and Australia , where many ports were, until recently, built on the multiple pier model, the term tends to imply a current or former cargo-handling facility. In contrast, in Europe , where ports more often use basins and river-side quays than piers, the term is principally associated with the image of a Victorian cast iron pleasure pier. However, the earliest piers pre-date

2548-470: Was adopted from the livre carolingienne system introduced by Charlemagne to the Frankish Empire . The penny was abbreviated to "d", from denarius , the Roman equivalent of the penny; the shilling to "s" from solidus (written with a long s , ſ , later evolving into a simple slash , / ); and the pound to "L" (subsequently £ ) from Libra or Livre . The origins of sterling lie in

2600-647: Was authorised by the Weston-super-Mare Grand Pier Act 1893 ( 56 & 57 Vict. c. xxx), and given an extension of time by the Weston-super-Mare Grand Pier Act 1897 ( 60 & 61 Vict. c. cxciv). Work began on building the pier on 7 November 1903, with P. Munroe acting as engineer, and it opened on 11 June 1904. At the pier's end was a 2,000-seat theatre which was used as a music hall and for opera , stage plays and ballet . On 16 May 1907 an extension of

2652-533: Was the fourth-most-traded currency in the foreign exchange market , after the United States dollar , the euro , and the Japanese yen . Together with those three currencies and the renminbi , it forms the basket of currencies that calculate the value of IMF special drawing rights . As of late 2022, sterling is also the fourth most-held reserve currency in global reserves . The Bank of England

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2704-523: Was the origin of its definition, manufacture, and name: the German name for the Baltic is Ostsee ( ' East Sea ' ) and from this the Baltic merchants were called Osterlings ( ' Easterlings ' ). In 1260, Henry III granted them a charter of protection and land for their kontor , the Steelyard of London , which by the 1340s was also called Esterlingeshalle ( ' Easterlings Hall ' ). Because

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