File:Hastings Pier post fire from east.jpg

Whilst the fire damage is indeed quite devastating to behold, to my layman's eye it would appear much of the Pier's ironwork is relatively intact so I do hope that investment can be found to raise this Pier from the ashes.

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Hastings Pier was designed by architect and renown Pier builder Eugenius Birch (who also designed Eastbourne Pier, West Pier and Brighton Pier) and opened to the public on 5th August 1872. Hastings Pier was considered innovative for a late-Victorian designed pleasure pier, extending some 910 feet (280 m) into the English Channel from the seafront promenade, with a large 2,000 seater pavilion theatre on the Pier Head at the seaward end which was destroyed by fire in 1917 and rebuilt during an art Deco refurbishment in 1922.

From it's heyday in the 1930's and a brief revival in the 1960's as a music venue, Hastings Pier went into steady decline as the cost of maintaining the Victorian structure spiralled and the ownership of the Pier changed hands with a succession of owners which saw the Pier closed to the public between 1999-2002 .