Victoria Pier, later known as The Royal Pier or just Southampton Pier. The 900-foot (270 m) pier was opened on 8 July 1833 by the then Princess Victoria. The pier was built to provide steamer services somewhere to dock. Before the construction of the pier, steamer passengers had to either transit the muddy foreshore or make use of Town Quay. Prior attempts to fund a pier at Southampton failed. In November 1829, the harbour board agreed to construct one. The Southampton Pier Act of 1831  authorised the pier, and the construction was funded through a mortgage. The pier was designed by Edward L. Stephens, a Royal Navy officer.  In 1847, a horse-drawn tramway was constructed to link the pier to Southampton Terminus railway station and by 1871, the tramway had been extended to the end of the pier, 5 years later, the trams were replaced by light steam locomotives.

As a child, I remember visiting Mayflower Park with my father when my mum would be shopping in the city centre, and we would often walk to the end of the pier. Dad would show me the Supermarine S.6A seaplane on display partway down the pier, a veteran of the 1929 Schneider Trophy. He was interested in flying boats, as he had worked for one of the operators in the 1950s, which had a Terminal near the pier.

Over the years, the pier fell into disrepair and closed at the end of 1979. The 1930s “wedding cake” style gatehouse replaced the Victoria gatehouse, which was reopened as a restaurant in 1986.

Sorting through some of my old photographs on 35mm slides, I came across some pictures of the fire that destroyed Southampton pier. On the morning of 4 May 1987, fire destroyed many of the structures at the end of the pier. I was living in our 1st house in Sholing when I learnt from Radio Solent local news that the pier was on fire. I took my camera and went across the Itchen Bridge to Mayflower Park. From there, I took a series of photographs documenting the death of our pier. I have posted the one picture of the fire on the odd Facebook feed in the past and seen it reposted without any credit for it!

My brother copied my original pictures from 35mm slides to digital files. I then cleaned the images with software, as nearly 40 years of storage had added dust and marks to the pictures. I was pleased with the results.