West Pier & Beach, Brighton 1971

This authentic 1970s colour photograph, captured in 1971, features a panoramic view of the West Pier and the shingle beach in the seaside resort of Brighton, East Sussex. The archival image documents the Victorian pier in its final years of operation; although it was Grade II listed in 1969 (and later became the first pier to be Grade I listed), the pierhead had already been closed in 1970 due to safety concerns. In the foreground, the pebble beach is lined with a row of approximately ten small wooden fishing boats and pleasure punts. These vessels represent the town’s enduring fishing community, which by 1971 had largely transitioned to offering “Skylark” pleasure trips for tourists following the closure of the open-air fish market in 1960. To the left, a rusted metal winch sits on the shingle, a relic of the manual labour required to haul boats above the high-tide mark on a beach with no natural harbour. This factual record preserves the historic integrity of Eugenius Birch’s masterpiece four years before its total closure in 1975.