Trinity Chain Pier, originally called Trinity Pier of Suspension, was built in Trinity, Edinburgh, Scotland in 1821. The pier was designed by Samuel Brown, a pioneer of chains and suspension bridges. It was intended to serve ferry traffic on the routes between Edinburgh and the smaller ports around the Firth of Forth, and was built during a time of rapid technological advance. It was well used for its original purpose for less than twenty years before traffic was attracted to newly developed nearby ports, and it was mainly used for most of its life for sea bathing. It was destroyed by a storm in 1898; a building at the shore end survives, much reconstructed, as a pub and restaurant called the Old Chain Pier.
Background
The Firth of Forth is an estuary which separates Edinburgh, Scotland's capital, from the peninsula of Fife. Traffic across the firth has been important for centuries; as well as having industry and agriculture, Fife lies on the shortest route from Edinburgh to the north of the country. The closest bridge to Edinburgh for many years was at Stirling, to the west. Queensferry, west, was named after Queen Margaret who crossed by ferry from there in 1070. Traffic across the firth was regulated and taxed as early as 1467, and was historically centred on the route from Leith to Kinghorn. A ferry from Newhaven to Burntisland started in 1792. Travel by sailing boat and stagecoach was slow and unreliable; Walter Scott in The Antiquary (1816) described the journey from Edinburgh to cross at Queensferry as being "like a fly through a glue-pot".
The late 18th and early 19th centuries saw a series of revolutions in transport during the Industrial Revolution. Turnpike trusts built over of roads in Scotland between 1790 and 1810. The Forth and Clyde (1790) and the Union Canals (1822) carried cargo between the west and east coasts, but horse-drawn canal boats were too slow to provide much advance for passengers. The steamboat was pioneered in the Firth of Clyde and Glasgow to the west, and made sea travel faster and more predictable for coastal and island communities. Trinity Chain Pier was built because the popularity of the new steam-powered vessels had caused congestion at Leith and Newhaven, and sandbars had built up at both harbours, restricting access at low tide. It was deemed easier to build a new facility than to negotiate more space at Newhaven harbour.
Design
The pier was proposed by Lieutenant George Crichton of the London, Leith, Edinburgh and Glasgow Steam Navigation Company. In 1820 the Lord Provost and magistrates of Edinburgh granted the company permission for the pier's construction. The company then transferred the permission to the Trinity Pier Company who were to administer construction and operate the pier, and they in turn commissioned Captain Samuel Brown to design the pier as his first independent project. Alexander Scott WS, one of the trustees of the company, granted permission to build the pier on his land. Scott and Alexander Stevenson were directors of the Trinity Pier Company, and Crichton was treasurer. It cost £4000 to build.
Brown (1776–1852) was a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars and had taken part in the capture of a superior French ship in 1805. He patented his method of building suspension bridges in 1817. He designed the extant 1820 Union Bridge near Berwick-upon-Tweed, which was the biggest suspension bridge in the world when built, and the first in Britain to carry vehicles.
While serving in the Royal Navy, Brown had experimented with using chain instead of rope in rigging sailing ships, and in 1808 he patented a new kind of wrought-iron chain. He sold the design to the Admiralty, which used it as anchor cable on ships. Brown considered that using piles to support a pier was superior to the traditional method of building in stone, because it was more economical to build and easier for ships to dock with. He cited pile-supported piers at Yarmouth, Ostend and Kronstadt which had been successful for long periods based on this design. Brown had used chains in his designs for some of Britain's first suspension bridges; he realised that chains made out of eye bolts joined were stronger than traditional designs based on shorter links. He was regarded as a "leading promoter" of suspension bridges. He proposed that suspension piers could support military and rescue operations. On 14 August 1822 Brown married Mary Horne from Edinburgh. After the pier at Trinity he went on to build the similar but much larger Royal Suspension Chain Pier in Brighton in 1823. It was destroyed by a storm in 1896.
The pier was long with a passenger deck. This comprised three wooden spans suspended above high water from lengths of wrought-iron chain connecting cast-iron standards to the shore. Each standard was in the shape of an arch which the passengers walked through. By 1838 the passenger deck had rails fitted to assist in moving large items of luggage. The chain was made of eye bolts about long, which, uniquely among Brown's designs, varied in thickness according to the load they were expected to carry. The long eye bolts were joined by shorter linking plates, and hung in a catenary from the tops of the standards. The chains crossed the standards on cast-iron saddles. The three seaward standards were built on platforms anchored to wooden piles driven into the foreshore. The largest platform, which formed the head of the pier, was by , and covered in thick planks. The length of the pier head was extended to prior to November 1821. It was supported on 46 piles driven into the clay seabed. At the landward end the chain passed over a solid masonry construction, square and high, and was then anchored at a 45° angle into the hard clay soil. The seaward end of the chain went over the outer piles at the same angle, and the piles were braced with diagonal supports to take the sideways load. There was a wrought-iron railing along the length of the deck, straight diagonal members connecting the deck to the standards, and iron bracing under the deck. The pier was designed for passenger use only, and moved noticeably when walked on.
Brown tested the pier on 21 September 1821 by having 21 tons of pig-iron ballast placed on the spans while it was in use by passengers. The French engineer Claude-Louis Navier inspected the pier in 1821, and reported that the structure was strengthened against wind loads in 1822, following its behaviour during storms in its first winter.
History Ferry pier
Poor weather delayed the driving of the piles, which took from March to July 1821. The pier was decorated with flags for its opening ceremony on 14 August. Steamboats fired salutes from alongside the pier. Three hundred people walked from the Trinity Hotel to the pier, and boarded a steamboat for a brief excursion, while a band played from a second vessel. The opening was attended by the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, the local magistrates, as well as Crichton, Ramsay, Scott, Stevenson, and the other proprietors of the company. Admiral Robert Otway (commander-in-chief of naval forces at Leith), General Duff, Sir George Mackenzie, George Baird (the Principal of Edinburgh University), Robert Jameson, John Leslie, William Wallace, and Brown the designer were also present. When they returned they took refreshment in a tent at the head of the pier.
The pier served ferry traffic between Edinburgh and ports on the Firth of Forth and beyond, and was usable at all states of the tide. Leith and Newhaven were having problems with sandbars leading to vessels being trapped and damaged at low water, but the Chain Pier had of water at the very lowest tides, and could serve vessels when Leith and Newhaven were unable to. In its first year the pier made a profit of £200, and there was a proposal to improve the facilities for passengers and other visitors, including having telescopes to view the ferries. Traffic from as far afield as Aberdeen and London was mentioned, and the pier was referred to as "ingenious and beautiful". By late 1823 there was a small shop at the pier head.
In 1822 the organisers of King George IV's visit to Edinburgh considered using the pier for his landing, but following protests they chose Leith harbour instead. The "New Cut" was built for the proposed royal parade from the Chain Pier to the city centre; it later became Craighall Road. In the same year, the Brilliant became the first steam packet to call at Anstruther, en route from the Chain Pier to Aberdeen.
The existing ferry operators tried to maintain their monopoly over the shortest crossings to Fife for several years. Ferries from the Chain Pier were prevented from landing at Dysart, Kirkcaldy, Aberdour and all ports in between. This was confirmed in a court hearing in December 1821, in which the existing interdict on ferries from the pier to Kirkcaldy was maintained and extended. This was seen as being detrimental to the quality of service. By August 1829 ferries to Dysart were permitted, and a flag was raised at the Chain Pier in celebration. Ferries to Grangemouth connected with the Forth and Clyde Canal.
In 1823 the piles were discovered to be under attack from the marine crustacean Limnoria terebrans, informally referred to as the 'gribble worm'. It was about long, and bored holes in the piles, reducing their strength. After many attempts to secure and repair them, in 1830 the piles had to be replaced and sheathed in iron. James Anderson accomplished the difficult and dangerous task of replacing the timbers while maintaining the tension in the chains to keep the bridge standing. The costs involved put the company into debt and prevented the payment of a dividend.
In mid-1830 the Royal George carried 8,168 passengers to Dysart, Leven and Largo in a two-month period, as well as 1,181 pleasure trippers who did not land in Fife. In 1831 the Victory and Lady of the Lake made daily sailings from the Chain Pier to the same destinations. The lowest fare to Largo was 2 shillings. Stagecoach connections were available from there to Anstruther and St Andrews.
On 18 September 1832 the exiled and bankrupt French King Charles X used the pier to leave Scotland for Hamburg. On 4 June 1833 the ferry Benlomond caught fire just after leaving the pier for Stirling. The Lion and the Stirling Castle rescued all 220 passengers from the ferry before it sank in shallow water west of the pier, 40 minutes after departure.
In 1834 a clock and a large bell were placed at the entrance to the pier. The bell was rung just before each steamer's departure time in order to prevent delays. That year there were ferries from Trinity to Stirling, Alloa, Charlestown, Aberdour, Dysart, Leven, and Largo. In 1835 a journey to Dundee cost 5 shillings, or 3/- for steerage. The Rothesay left the Chain Pier at 6:30 am and returned from Dundee at 2 pm each day during the summer. Other destinations by 1842 included Crombie Point, Bo'ness and Limekilns. The Stirling Castle made a pleasure trip to the Bass Rock and the Isle of May from the pier in 1832. In 1836 the steam packet from the Chain Pier to Dundee was advertised as carrying mail, including parcels and light goods.
Early in its life, Alexander Nasmyth, who was a keen amateur engineer, depicted the pier in a watercolour painting; the work, "The Old Chain Pier, Newhaven", belongs to the Scottish National Gallery. In 2002 it featured in an exhibition along with the contemporary Edinburgh paintings of Turner. A calotype of the pier taken in 1840 was among a collection of 206 early photographs of Edinburgh discovered in an auction in Swindon in 2002. The National Library of Scotland bought them for over £200,000 and placed the images online.