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The current pier at Deal is the town’s third such structure. The first, built in 1838, was never intended as a pleasure pier but as a way to easily land passengers and cargo in a coastal town that lacked a harbour. A wooden design was produced by John Rennie, a respected engineer who had been responsible for London Bridge, that would have stretched to 445 feet. Unfortunately funds ran out and the pier was never completed; in the end what had been built collapsed in a gale in 1857. To this day, wooden stumps that formed the base of the pier are occasionally uncovered at low tide.
The second pier, designed by Eugenius Birch, was opened in 1864. It was 1000 feet long and constructed using wrought and cast iron supported on cast iron columns screwed into the ground. There was a restaurant and concert hall. Steamers could be moored at the pier head in any state of the tide and a tramway was provided to convey luggage and goods to and from the shore. Sadly, this pier became a wartime casualty when a Dutch ship ‘Nora’ carrying a cargo of straw boards struck the pier after being severely damaged by a mine. In heavy seas the crippled vessel was repeatedly bashed against the structure eventually driving the ship clean through and leaving the pier severed. Later in the war the remains were blown up as they were deemed an impediment to coastal defences.
After the war it was decided that a new pier should be built and the current structure, constructed of reinforced concrete to a design by Sir William Halcrow and Partners, was opened in 1957. It is the only pleasure pier to have been built in the post-war period and the only one remaining intact in Kent. There is a café at the seaward end and facilities for anglers.