Daddy Long Legs, or as it was properly known Pioneer, was the oddest pier ever to have existed. It was built as an extension to the electric railway which ran along the Brighton coast from the Aquarium to the Chain Pier; it was difficult to continue the line along the coast so Magnus Volk, the designer, decided to run it though the sea. So in November 1896 it became possible to board the Pioneer at Paston Place and travel along a railway line through the sea to a pier at Rottingdean.
Pioneer sat on 24ft pier-like legs, could carry a maximum of 150 people at a time but travelled at just 8 mph when the weather was good meaning it took an hour and a half to travel to Rottingdean and back. It was a effectively a slow moving section of pier.
The line was plagued with problems - just a week after it opened Pioneer and the pier at Paston Place were badly damaged in the same storm which destroyed the Chain Pier, the service did not restart until July the following year. The rebuilt Pioneer was now 26ft high but breakdowns were frequent and it could not operate in bad weather. Not only was it expensive to build and maintain it was also expensive to ride costing 6d each way so it was only our better off ancestors who could afford to take a ride on it. Despite that the crowds came to try out this unique and unusual method of travel.
In 1900 the service was suspended whilst work was undertaken to prevent further erosion of the cliffs but the new groynes extended out beyond the route of the railway so the line was closed. There were plans for a new route further out but the cost was prohibitive and instead the inshore railway was extended to Black Rock.
Volks railway is the oldest electric railway and it is still in operation during the summer months. For more details see the website.
For more information on the railway line and Daddy Long Legs see the Volks Electric Railway Association website.
Lewes Through Time by Bob Cairns
published by Amberley Publishing - available from all good bookshops from £14.99
Books comprised of old photographs of towns and villages are very popular but this one of Lewes has not only the old photograph but the modern equivalent, which serves to show how much this individual and pretty town has changed over the last hundred years.
Some buildings have stood the test of time, the prison and Priory Crescent appear little changed whilst others are clearly the same although their function may have changed such as the Maltings which was part of a brewery and is now the record office or the Lewes Infirmary which is now the NatWest bank. Other buildings have gone completely, in some cases whole streets have disappeared in the name of progress, half of Little East Street was demolished to make way for a dual carriageway and much of North Street has gone although some of that is a result of bombing during World War 2.
This is a useful book for anyone with ancestors who lived in Lewes and for anyone who has lived in the area themselves, reminding us as it does of a time now largely forgotten.
