The long and continuing story of South Parade Pier still doesn’t seem to have any resolution in sight just yet. The boards went up on the front of the pier the other day and with the serious damage under the pier and at the landing stage it is looking worse for wear. On the plus side, the South Parade Trust have received £10,000 to provide initial funding for a feasibility study in it’s plans to buy and restore the pier. The Trust itself is modelling its plans on the successful community takeover of Hastings’ pier which some years ago was devastated by fire, despite the continued long drawn out sale of the pier we 100% back the trust and hope things finally turn a corner soon.

On a more positive note, I’ve spent some time recently exploring the amazing Britain From Above website which has a vast visual library of images taken around Great Britain between 1919 and 1953. Portsmouth is heavily represented on the website with some incredible photos, in particular of Southsea in it’s holiday heydays before people travelled abroad. Below are some images from the website of South Parade Pier, obviously taken before the 1970s fire, showing it in some of it’s previous glory days.

1946


1932


1932


1928


1928