Penarth Pier

I eventually got Mrs BB to agree a week next April to do a Rhine Cruise. Why she was worrying so much about leave when it would be weeks before she is made redundant I don't know - conscientious to the last!

I checked the tide table and saw that Penarth high tide was at 5.40 and managed to get there just after 6pm to get an aerial photo. Two lovely young children who'd be in the sea near the cliff were intrigued and came over for a chat when I'd landed, with their mum.

Monday night is band practice, in the Roath area of Cardiff, which is on the way home, and I made it there for 7.30pm. Some of the chord changes were coming thick and fast and I did struggle but it was still very enjoyable.

Mrs BB finished work at 8pm and went for her 1.5 mile swim and was home before me. That's some doing after a 9 hour shift. She says it relaxes her - it'd crease most of us!

Penarth pier successfully opened in 1895, and is 750 feet long. In 1929, the pier was sold to Penarth Borough Council. As a result, a new concrete landing stage was built at the seaward end, and in 1930 a spectacular Art Deco pavilion, built of ferro-concrete, at the shoreward end.

In August 1931 the pier caught fire, which lasted for 3 days, and 800 people on the pier, survived. Between 1994-6 the pier underwent restoration using money from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and re-opened in May 1998. Between 2011-13 the Pavilion was restored, again using money from the HLF, and is now open.

In 1947 and 1966 the pier was hit by ships causing damage. The pier was voted Pier of the Year by the National Piers Society in 2014!