The Chain Pier Models

The history of Brighton is never better illustrated than by its iconic buildings, land and seascape.  Many of these have given creative inspiration to model makers over the last two hundred years. After the Pavilion, as a subject, the Chain Pier must run a close second. The museum has recently received two excellent, yet very different examples of this feat of construction and how it would have looked in its heyday. Both models are much appreciated transfers from Brighton Museum.

So - before we look at the models - what was the Chain Pier? To understand the accuracy of our two new models we need a few facts! After the Napoleonic wars (1803-1815) between Britain and France, there was significant growth in cross channel traffic between Brighton and Dieppe. Without a harbour, passengers and cargo needed to be safely ferried in small boats to and from larger vessels. The Royal Suspension Chain Pier was built to provide this, with an 80 foot landing stage of Purbeck stone at the pier head.

The pier was accessed at the shore end via steps from the New Steine or via a toll house leading to a new esplanade at the foot of the cliffs of the Old Steine. Building started in 1822, reaching completion in September 1823, at a cost of £30,000. The pier deck was 1,154 feet long and 13 feet wide, with four cast iron towers to suspend the chains along it’s length, which in turn supported the pier. At the shore end the chains were secured 54 feet into the cliff through a ‘bazaar’ building, into 3 ton steel plates set in cement and secured by large weights at the pier end.  Wooden steps led down under the pier to staging platforms.

As well as being a functional design it also offered popular attractions as an early ’pleasure pier’ for the promenading public, who paid for the privilege of walking it’s length. Kiosks selling refreshments, souvenirs, artworks and books operated in the pier towers.  At the shore end the bazaar included a salon lounge, reading room and camera obscura, as well as selling toys and fancy goods.  Over the coming years the pier withstood storm and lightning damage and had to have extensive repairs. By 1866 it was in competition with the new West Pier and later in 1872 the Brighton Aquarium, and  was due to be replaced in order to build the new Palace Pier. However by 1896 damage from the weather had taken it’s toll and it was declared unsafe, before a great storm two months later finally destroyed the structure, before it could be demolished. A plaque by the existing Brighton Aquarium is sadly all that remains of this unique and innovative construction – although it lives on in the many images of the pier and of course in our two models!

Every object has a story to tell and the first of our models is no exception – made of unpainted beech wood, it arrived in ‘kit style’ pieces in it’s own large plain wooden box. With no information other than the provenance of it’s donation to Brighton Museum, the task of putting the many pieces together without an image was a challenge - even to our very experienced museum staff. Although the pieces had been numbered in pencil to indicate their corresponding hole on the base or structure, it took 3 people most of a day to complete and proved to be an impressive 4 foot 9” in length! A closer look showed that each piece had been cut using a fretsaw, and that holes for rows of posts could possibly have been drilled using a homemade jig. Each shape is accurate enough to work but not precise, simplistic but well thought out. In the expert opinion of a staff member it is “too crude to be made by a toymaker but maybe by a competent home amateur using a plan from a hobbies style magazine”. The black and white paint details for windows and doors, are rarely straight and rather approximate, giving it a certain homely charm!

If basic in production the model makes up for this in accuracy, even including a signal cannon (in full size a 61lb) and a flag pole with a red flag to announce boat arrivals and a bollard at the pier head for mooring, The chains are all complete, made of links of a simple wire bar with round eye at each end, and are probably also home made.

The model has obviously been well cared for, it’s likely to be Victorian and made while the Chain Pier still existed. We can only guess at parts of it’s story….however a piece of paper in the box tells us that it has a very special provenance. It was donated in 1940 by Mrs Annie B Leigh-Mallory of Cheshire, the wife of a Cannon, to Brighton Museum. This is no ordinary family - Annie’s son was the mountaineer George Herbert Leigh-Mallory (1886-1924) famous for being on the first three British expeditions to conquer Everest in the 1920’s. He and his climbing partner Andrew ‘Sandy ‘Irvine were last seen ascending to the summit in 1924 – Mallory’s body was finally discovered in 1999, speculation continues as to whether they achieved their goal. In addition to George’s adventurous career, his younger brother Trafford (1892-1944) also had a distinguished life, though he too had a tragic end. After being wounded at Ypres in 1916 as an Infantryman in WW1, on recovery he returned to join the Royal Flying Corps (later the RAF) as a pilot, making this his career and eventually becoming the youngest ever Air Vice Marshal. During WW2 he became Commander in Chief of South East Asia Command but sadly in 1944 he and his wife died in a plane crash, en route to Sri Lanka to take up the post.

So was this a model that George or Trafford Mallory may have played with, or built with their siblings? We will never know.

Our second model could not be in greater contrast to the scale of the first. It arrived in a Perspex case, the original glass one having been in a poor state, but retains it’s original base. Undated and unmarked it can be estimated as mid to late Victorian due to the type of glass used for the sea beneath the pier and it’s wooden base, possibly Burr Walnut. Without it’s cover it can be properly viewed as an extremely delicate and amazing survivor, the small scale model being constructed, with great skill and precision, entirely from green and light brown card. Accuracy is again key to the success of the model. The maker has set the scene with the ‘bazaar’ building in the cliff at the shore end and included railings to the top promenade and steps to the beach. Several bathing machines are positioned on a realistic gravelly beach ready for use. The green machines are marked ‘Ladies Bathing’ and ‘Allen’ written on the roof (Allen was a type of bathing machine or is this a nod to the maker?). The plainer brown ones are the ‘Gentleman’s’. The pier head has two green kiosks and a number of flag poles with pennant flags. In testament to the maker’s precision, despite it’s age and fragility only a few joints have come adrift and then only on close inspection. A true marvel of patience and the model makers art. Unfortunately this model comes with no provenance so we can only speculate on its history – but we can continue to admire it  - as it is now on display in the museum.

Joy’s Pick of the Month is part of Object Stories at Brighton Toy Museum.