Mumbles Pier

Cadw's description

Location

Sited just W of Mumbles Head; pointing NE across Swansea Bay.

History

Built in 1897-8 by W Sutcliffe Marsh, engineer and Mayoh and Haley, contractors. The ironwork was supplied by Widnes Foundry Co. The pier was breached during World War II as an anti-invasion measure, and was re-opened with a new landing stage in 1956. Much of the substructure lattice was replaced at this time. The present entrance is an addition, replacing the original turnstile.

The pier was the terminus for the Swansea & Mumbles Railway which had its origins as the first regular passenger rail service in the world. In 1865 the Llanelly Railway obtained permission to build a Mumbles branch and pier but it was never completed. The promoter of the existing pier was Sir John Jones Jenkins of the Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway. The Act authorising its construction was passed in 1889, work began in 1892 and the pier was opened on 10 May 1898. Mumbles Pier quickly became a very popular place of recreation for Victorian and Edwardian society.

A lifeboat slipway was added to the north of the pier in 1916, reach by a lattice walkway, and the station boathouse was built in 1922.

A new RNLI Lifeboat Station and slipway located at the seaward end of the Pier was opened in 2014. Substructure lattice replaced with curved plate girders in 2023-4.

Exterior

A pier 255m long built on a sub-structure of cast-iron piles below a deck originally carried on steel-framed lattice girders, now curved plate girders. The deck is laid with planks and has a cast iron parapet with open foliage panels. On each side are 3 refuges, of which the larger pair at the seaward end originally housed pavilions. At the seaward end the pier broadens (originally with a bandstand in the centre) with benches around the edges, the backs of which have cast iron intertwined dolphins. In the centre is a row of iron fluted gas lamps cast by Revo of Tipton. On the S side of the entrance the parapet continues on concrete posts and terminates in concrete steps to the foreshore. At the seaward end is a lower landing stage for pleasure steamers. It stands on timber posts and was rebuilt in 1956.

Midway along the N side of the pier is a lattice girder walkway to the old lifeboat station.

Reason for designation

Listed principally for its special interest as one of only 6 iron piers to survive in Wales, of which this is the third longest.