Note: North Somerset Council's Birnbeck Pier Restoration Project has been made possible thanks to over £44m in external funding secured from the UK Government, The National Lottery Heritage Fund, National Heritage Memorial Fund and Historic England.
The research that I’m carrying out for the project, which is covering Birnbeck Pier's Second World War history, has been made possible thanks to funding from the council’s social value agreement with its contractor, Mackley.
As the research progresses, I will add more topics to this page.
The mystery of Birnbeck Pier's lost HMS Vernon plaque (1949) A while ago I was sent a photograph of a missing plaque which, I was told, used to hang in one of the buildings on Birnbeck Island, Weston-super-Mare. The plaque commemorated a close association between Birnbeck Pier and HMS Vernon from 1942 to 1949. The words inscribed on the plaque speak to a unique period in the life of Birnbeck Pier, for in 1941 the pier, and the island to which it is linked, was requisitioned by the Admiralty for secret war time weapons testing. Full story HERE
The Woodspring Bay wrecks (1944) A couple of years ago I spent a fascinating few hours with three farming friends in the village of Kingston Seymour on the North Somerset coast. We were exploring the history of two Second World War era wrecks which had been deliberately sunk in Woodspring Bay by the so-called 'Wheezers and Dodgers', a group of scientists and Admiralty personnel based at Birnbeck Pier. Full story HERE
