THERE are some things you wouldn’t want to wake up in the morning and see, aren’t there?
The most recent – comparatively so – example I can think of would be the collapse of Marsden Arch. How jaw-dropping was that?
This would be another, a whole stretch of one of our iconic Tyne piers in bits and the sea pouring through the defences.
This dramatic picture duo is from the collection of photographs loaned by Ken Webster.
While the breaching of the North Pier is a famous event, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the disastrous result from this angle before.
It’s an illustration of the power of the North Sea’s wrath that the piers hold back.
Chunks of both were swept away during construction in the 1860s. Both were damaged again in the 1890s.
But it was over the period from December 1896 to January 1897 that terrible gales did their real worst, severely breaching the North Pier about 200 yards from the seaward end.
It resulted in a complete rebuilding of the end of the pier from a point about 2,200 feet from the shore, and with the foundations being taken down to more than 40ft below low water.
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