October 2010 was a memorable month for England's historic pleasure piers. Early in the month, fire ravaged Hastings Pier, to the extent that there is some doubt as to whether it can be restored, but, by contrast, at the end of the month there was the delightful news that the Grand Pier at Weston-Super-Mare, previously fire-damaged, had re-opened at a refurbishment cost of £39million.

What happened at Hastings, however, is highly significant. This was one of the fourteen piers designed and constructed by Eugenius Birch, the most prolific, by far, of the pleasure pier engineers; and in 1872 Hastings Pier was the first-ever pier to be designed with a pier-head structure, its theatre. Birch had introduced a novel screw-pile driving method to support his piers and the fact that his piers had a greater potential to withstand accident and storm damage meant that his method was widely imitated. However the fact remains that of Birch's masterpieces only Bournemouth, Eastbourne and Blackpool North Piers remain in any full sense to demonstrate his engineering and design genius - although the derelict remains of Weston-Super-Mare Birnbeck, Brighton West and now Hastings, and a fragment of Aberystwyth, also give hints of what he achieved.