Pier review A glimmer of hope once again
AS you may have read in the Post last week, North Somerset Council has announced that it plans to go ahead with plans to issue a Compulsory Purchase Order for the crumbling Birnbeck Pier in Weston-superMare.
The pier, built in the 1860s and designed by the mellifluously na me dEu genius Birch, a giant among Victorian pier-designers, has been in a bloody sorry state for a long time. There have to be some doubts as to whether it can even be saved at all, or whether the rusting confection should just be scrapped.
The council served a statutory notice on owners CNM Estates last year compelling them to carry out repairs, but nothing has been done.
The last real possibility of its revival was a long time ago, when a firm called Urban Splash, which specialises in regenerating interesting old buildings, proposed turning it into swish apartments. But then the banking crash happened.
North Somerset Councillor Mark Canniford said “the can has been kicked down the road for 30 years.”
“We’re leaving no doubt to the owner that something is now going to happen.
“It will take up to two years to do a compulsory purchase. We have time to get this right.
We wish North Somerset, and any new owners who step up, the best of luck. It will take a lot of money and imagination to bring the old structure back to life. With money and willpower, and with the undoubted goodwill of the good folk of Weston and beyond, there’s hope. The triumphant return of Weston’s Grand Pier after its disastrous fire proves that it can be done.
If I have a seriously big win on the Euromillions in the coming months I’ll give them a call. I can think of few things I’d rather squander a fortune on.
Walk Fest wants your walks
May is Walk Fest month in Bristol, now firmly established on the local calendar as a way of getting you off the couch and getting some fresh air and exercise.
But it’s also about getting people to explore all the different aspects of our fascinating city, its wildlife, art, architecture and, of course, its history. Last year’s WalkFest offered about 250 different pedestrian adventures of every kind, from sociable strolls for new parents with buggies through to explorations of some of the most recondite bits of local history.
If you or an organisation you belong to ever does history-flavoured guided walks in the Bristol area, or if you’re thinking of running one, the organisers of this year’s Fest want to hear from you. The more walks, the merrier
Festival director Karen Lloyd of Active Ageing Bristol says: “We already know that scores of last year’s event organisers are already fine-tuning their plans for Bristol Walk Fest 2020 but more submissions to our free guide are most welcome – if we hear in time.”
There is no charge for adding a listing to the festival’s line-up and while the organisers are keen to make sure that most walks and walking sports are free to join, some organisers are allowed to sell tickets.
To find the events submissions form, visit https://tinyurl.com/ yx5zm4hb
The complete programme, when it’s ready, will be on the Bristol Walk Fest website at www.bristolwalkfest.com. Printed brochures, flyers and posters will also be available.
Down the chocolate mines
Hula hoops, Pokémon cards, pogs, loom bands … There have always been playground crazes. Some, like yo-yos, keep making comebacks, and of course those weird Japanese vermin which first speared as trading cards spun off from a truly awful animation (I will NEVER get back those excruciating two hours in the cinema when I foolishly agreed to take Miss Latimer and Latimer Jr. to see the Pokémon movie) reappeared some years later in virtual form as Pokémon Go.
But it’s weird when you come across a Victorian playground craze.
“Chocolate Mines” were the big thing Down Wiv Da Kidz in England in 1885.
Like most kiddie fads ever since, they led to a moral panic. There was also a widely-reported legal case in Bristol, even though it was only before magistrates.
On April 1 1885 Henry Barrington, confectioner of number 19, Broadmead, was up before Bristol Police Court for having “unlawfully and publicly kept open, and showed, and exposed to be drawn, a certain illegal lottery.”
Barrington was the first of four defendants facing the same charge that morning, all of them sweet shop owners and confectioners from various parts of town, all of whom had been visited by a police inspector in the course of his inquiries.
Inspector Wedmore testified that he had gone to the shop of Mr Barrington, “a highly respectable man”. In the shop window was a box to
Weston’s Birnbeck Pier. All set for a revival?
Explorers of Bristol during last year’s Walk Fest
which was attached a card saying: “Barrett and Company’s Chocolate Mines: two a penny.”
Barrett’s was a London-based company whose new line of sweets was hugely popular with children.
The idea was simple: the “Mines” were pieces of chocolate which might contain a farthing, halfpenny, penny or threepence coin – or nothing at all. In fact, most of them contained nothing at all, apart from chocolate of the cheap ‘n’ nasty variety.
You bought your Mines, and you might “win” a coin or two, or you might win nothing. But you’d still have chocolate.
Barrett’s, the court was told, was a respectable and law-abiding business, and the popularity of its Mines was such that the company was drawing £600 worth of coins from its bank each week to put into some of its products. If that was pennies alone it would amount to 144,000 coins, but we’re also talking about a load of ha’pennies and farthings*, too – and as most of the “mines” didn’t have any money in at all, we can reasonably surmise that the firm was shifting well over a million lumps of chocolate each week.
(* Note to younger readers: A farthing was a quarter of an old penny. In modern terms it would be one 960th of a Pound. This didn’t amount to much, even in Victorian times.)
Obviously this sort of thing wouldn’t be permitted nowadays because of the danger of kids swallowing coins, though at the time everyone knew that you were supposed to break them open before putting them into your mouth. Duuuhhh!
Mr Barrington of Broadmead and his co-defendants were found guilty of running an illegal lottery. Given that they were all of good character and had not knowingly broken the law, each was fined just five shillings.
The beaks also wondered aloud whether the prosecution had been an appropriate use of the time of a police inspector.
Undeterred, Inspector Wedmore was before the bench two years later with another bunch of miscreants who had also been selling Chocolate Mines, and each of them was stung for five bob as well.
Future years would see similar prosecutions elsewhere around the country, but this illegal trade carried on regardless, with Chocolate Mines, or identical confections being sold under different names, being advertised quite openly. There does not seem to have been any big government crackdown on it, and so it would appear that buying lumps of cheap chocolate on the off-chance of winning a coin or two, went the same way as every other playground craze.
The court was surely right, though. It did amount to a lottery, just like buying scratchcards nowadays, though you can’t eat the scratchcard when you find you’ve lost. Though by all accounts the scratchcard might be more tasty and nutritious than the “Mine” chocolate.
Any BT reader who would like to go into the Chocolate Mines business (legally, of course) and ends up making a fortune should remember it was me who gave you the idea. I’ll take your gratitude in monetary form, thanks.
Cheers then!