The Pier Cleethorpes

We had Sunday lunch in the restaurant. It was an absolute delight, the tables were perfectly laid out with high quality white linen, the staff were very smart and attentive, and the food was excellent. As my female friend said, ‘You can’t want for more’.
Do NOT fail to visit this venue!

I visited last summer and it seemed a bit run down & unloved to me. Maybe its been improved by now? Update 2012; very much improved. Amusements for the kids all the way along. Pub (also happy to serve tea, coffee etc) at the end. Really buzzing with activity.

I was once a Pierette. A dancer on the Pier, at the Variety shows, for a season, when I was at art school. There was a fire in the dressing rooms at this time and when it was snowing in winter (we went back to do Panto) we had to all hold hands and the outer ones gold the railings to get off the pier without slipping over. I also entered dance festivals here alongside Margo Henderson. (Once Prima Balleriana with the Royal).
Cleethorpes Pier opened during the August Bank Holiday of 1873. Built by the prestigious firm of Head Wrightson.
Ordered by the Cleethorpes Promenade Pier Company and largely financed by the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, Cleethorpes Pier opened during the August Bank Holiday of 1873.
Cleethorpes Pier was constructed of iron piles under a timber deck. Its length, due to the considerable tidal movement, extended a full 1,200ft (366m). The Railway Company (later known as LNER) took a lease on Cleethorpes Pier in 1884, for an annual sum of £450, before finally buying the structure 20 years later.
A seaward end pavilion was built in 1888 but this was destroyed in a blaze in 1903. In 1905 shops and a café were built at the pier-​head, on the site of the old building, along with a new pavilion midway along the pier neck, to the right of the main deck. This new pavilion originally lacked any form of heating and was therefore largely confined to summer use. Entertainment included concerts and popular dances throughout the week.
For some time the pavilion was also home to the Cleethorpes Musical Festival; an event highly thought of in musical circles at the time. The provision of heating in 1923 ensured that entertainment could be scheduled throughout the year. The pavilion survives today and remains in a well-​maintained condition. The final part of the 1905 redevelopment was the construction of an elevated link to the adjoining ‘Pier Gardens’, but this was removed in the late 1930s. In 1936 ownership passed to Cleethorpes Borough Council.
Sectioned during the Second World War for fear of invasion, Cleethorpes Pier like so many others was never to recover in its original form. The breached section was left unrepaired after the war and eventually the isolated seaward end was demolished, reducing the pier length to a mere 335ft (101m).
£50,000 was spent on modernising the pavilion in 1968, the new facilities including a 600-​seat concert hall and a new café and bar. Ownership passed to Funworld Limited in 1981 but, after suffering poor attendance for their first season of summer shows, the company decided to close the pier in 1983. Cleethorpes Pier’s future looked in doubt until Mark Mayer purchased it in the summer of 1985. Re-​opening on 4^th September 1985 the pavilion had been transformed, at a cost of £300,000, into a modern nightclub by the name of ‘Pier 39′.
The pier changed hands again in 1989 being purchased by Whitegate Leisure PLC who, after spending substantial funds on again refurbishing the pavilion, continue to operate ‘Pier 39′.