Seaside town with UK’s longest pier that needs it’s own train to get to the end

Just an hour away from London stands a proud example of British engineering that is still a world record holder more than 130 years after it was built.

Southend Pier is the longest pleasure pier on the planet and juts out an impressive 1.33 miles, or 7,080 feet, out into the waters of the Thames Estuary.

During the industrialisation of the Victoria era getting to the coast and experiencing the fresh sea air away from the smog and factories of the cities was widely hailed as a health benefit.

And Southend-on-Sea provided the perfect location for a pier to stroll along and enjoy the air because of the vast shallow mud flats which surrounded it on the estuary.

An original 7,000-foot-long wooden structure was completed in 1848, but over the next 30 years it was replaced by a new iron construction with entertainment buildings added and even an electric railway.

Today the amazing example of Victorian ingenuity still stands, despite having survived a fire in 1995, and just two years ago Southend-on-Sea City Council reported a record 392,025 visitors.

The pier railway is a runs for 1.25 miles and provides transport on a half-hourly basis from 10.30am for passengers wanting to visit the Pier Head out in the estuary. The locomotives travel at a sedate eight to 10mph.

On the pier itself tourists can enjoy a café, gift shop and a picnic area, as well as take time to sit on one of the many benches and enjoy the sea views and refreshing breeze.

There is also a working RNLI lifeboat station which is described as the “second busiest” in the country serving the busy coastline and estuary.

According to Southend Pier Museum’s website: “Sir John Betjeman once said, ‘the Pier is Southend, Southend is the Pier’, and it’s as true today as it was when it first welcomed visitors all those years ago.

“If you walk along Southend-on-Sea’s High Street, towards the sea, your eye will be drawn in a straight line towards the longest pleasure pier in the world.

“Standing for over a century it extends 2,158 metres (1.341 miles) into the Thames Estuary, and is a well loved and recognised symbol of Southend and the pleasures of the English seaside.”