Ryde Pier - Victoria Pier

Victoria Pier

For a few decades, Ryde had a second pier, the Victoria Pier, a few hundred yards to the east of the original, and still existing, pier. It was promoted by the Stokes Bay Pier and Railway Company to provide a landing for a rival ferry service from Gosport. It opened in 1864 as the main pier was getting its tramway addition. Being somewhat shorter than Ryde Pier, it could not be used at all states of the tide, so offered little competition to the main Ryde Pier to Portsmouth ferry services. When the Stokes Bay company was acquired by the London & South Western Railway in 1875, the ferry service ceased, and Victoria Pier became a pleasure pier only, with public baths at the head and a swimming platform at the dry end.

By 1900 use of the bathing facilities was declining, and the pier gradually became derelict. In the austerity of the First World War it was considered redundant and a hazard, and in 1916 its demolition was authorised by Act of Parliament. By the 1920s it had gone. Until the construction of Ryde Harbour marina in the 1980s, the outline of the shore-end abutment could be made out in the sea wall near the Ryde Pavilion, and at low spring tides the stumps of the piles could be seen in the sand some way offshore. Now not a trace remains.