Sunday 23 January 2022

Exploring :: A Birthday Adventure at Clevedon

Hi there everyone 😀

It's a cold and grey Sunday afternoon in January and I've decided to spend an hour or so trying to catch up with some blog posts that I still want to share from the back end of last year ... starting with my birthday trip to Clevedon.

Back in August 2018 Martin and I had a lovely day out at Weston-super-mare, driving back along the coast road through Clevedon on our way home. It was too late to stop then but we both said that it was somewhere that we definitely wanted to go back to for a proper visit.

For one reason or another, Covid being a big one, we didn't manage to get back there for quite some some time but we did manage a trip for my birthday back in November last year.

We knew it would be a bit of a trek but we were lucky with the traffic and had a really good journey and parked up along the front, not far from the pier, at about 11.00am. As you can see it was more than a little bit murky, with the coast of Wales having disappeared into the gloom ...

Excited to be out and by the sea we were undeterred, got dressed for the weather and headed along the prom for the pier ...


It really is a beautiful pier and we couldn't wait to explore. You do have to pay a small charge to visit the pier and this does include entry to a small museum sharing the pier's history ... we didn't visit the museum, preferring to stay outside for this visit ...
It was still pretty grey and very breezy but the pier did not disappoint. It is beautifully kept, spotlessly clean and it was easy to imagine the old paddle steamers docking on the end dropping off their Victorian passengers in years gone by ...
We took a very steady amble to the end of the pier and it looked like the cloud was beginning to clear ... we could even now see across to Wales ...

We had a good look around at the end of the pier ... where it was more than a little breezy ...

... before making our way back ... and look ... a little bit of blue sky put in an appearance especially for my birthday visit ...


There is lots of information about the history of the pier on line but ... in a nutshell ... it was officially opened on Easter Monday in 1869 and for 20 years provided a new, fast route over to South Wales. The opening of the Severn Railway Tunnel in 1886 began to snatch away the steamer passengers and business faltered, with the pier being transferred to the ownership of Clevedon Council.

The sum of £10,000 was borrowed from the town, to pay for a new pierhead and a landing stage. These consisted of twenty-four massive iron columns and forty-two green-heat piles, 25 feet long. The new landing stage was built at an angle to the pierhead, in order to align with the prevailing Bristol Channel current. The re- habilitated pier was re-opened on 3rd April 1893 by Lady Elton.

Just a year later, the Japanese style pagoda and two shelters were added to the pierhead. The style of these beautiful structures owes much to John Nash’s Brighton Pavilion built several centuries earlier. The Town Surveyor oversaw this work which was undertaken by McDowell and Stevens of the Melton Iron Works. 26 tons of ironwork was thus added to the pierhead.

In 1913, the timber landing stage, which had deteriorated, was replaced by the present pre-cast concrete structure. Even this work suffered temporary disruption by a gale which wrecked sections of the newly installed concrete and ripped up decking.

As time went by disaster struck the Pier at 10:20 on the morning of Friday, 16th October 1970, when under load testing for insurance purposes, the two end spans failed and collapsed into the sea.

It was 1998 before the pier was restored to her former glory and went on to be voted as the pier of the year in 1999. In 2001 it was awarded Grade 1 listed status and the future secured.

Back on dry land for us and, with a bit of blue sky, the view was looking much brighter ...
... and look how clear we could see Wales now ...
We decided to walk back along the front to the other end of the bay to see what we could find ... hopefully somewhere nice for lunch ... stopping to look back at the pier along the way ...

We stopped at The Little Harp Inn for lunch ...

... and very nice it was too. It was also lovely to get warm and toasty ...
Refreshed we continued our walk along the front, ending up at The Marine Lake, another piece of Victorian history brought back to life ...
I can imagine that it would be a lovely spot to spend an afternoon in the sunshine but even on a cold November day there was plenty going on ... there were even a few brave swimmers ...

We walked right to the end so we could take in the view looking back across the lake to the pier ...

Time was getting on so we decided to head back, dropping down onto the beach to get some different views of the pier ...

Back at the car and this was the view ...

... which was just a little bit different from what we'd been greeted with on arrival ...

It was time to head for home, but we decided to carry on along the coast and call in to see what was at Portishead on the way back to the motorway.

We parked up by the lido on the edge of the Bristol Channel and had a bit of a wander and got some fabulous views of the Channel ...


It was a fabulous view of the bridge looking up river, but I was looking right into the sun so my photos are not that good ...

We'd spun the most out of the day and still had a pretty long drive home so headed back to the car for the off ...
I just went to crop out the signs on the top left of this photo and then realised it was a 'do not climb' sign ... which made wish I'd actually got it all in 😂

We'd had a lovely day. Clevedon was a real treat and is somewhere we will definitely go back to. It will be lovely in the summer, though then I guess it will be busy ... and it was nice visiting whilst it was so quiet.

We had another good drive home with a cracking sunset to round off the day ...


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2 comments:

  1. In spite of the day starting out a bit dreary, it turned out to be a beautiful day for your birthday outing! Great photos, especially with that gorgeous sky.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It did end up being a beautiful day … definitely somewhere we will be visiting again 😃

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