For generations, an evening out in Ryde, Sandown or Shanklin meant the seafront: a band at the end of Ryde Pier, a show on Sandown Pier, a penny in a machine on Culver Road. A lot of it has gone. Ryde’s pier-head pavilion was pulled down in 1971, Shanklin lost its pier to the Great Storm of 1987, and the penny-slot machines of Culver Road were burnt and sent for scrap. Yet Ryde Pier still carries trains to the ferries, Sandown Pier still has its amusements and Shanklin’s seafront still has a traditional arcade.
Ryde: where the promenading began
Ryde Pier opened on 26 July 1814, to a design by John Kent of Southampton, and Wightlink, whose catamarans sail from its end, calls it the UK’s oldest pier. By the mid-1800s it was nearly half a mile long, and in its heyday it was the place to see and be seen, with bands playing at the pier head in the evenings.
From 1864 a tramway ran alongside, and for thousands of holidaymakers the tram ride down the pier was their first taste of the Island. A concert pavilion followed at the pier head in 1895. As the Seagull, it was at various times a theatre, café, dance hall, club, skating rink and skittle alley; Arthur Askey appeared there, and in the 1960s the Seagull Ballroom played host to rock bands. The tramway closed in 1969, and in 1971 British Rail, then the owner, had the Seagull demolished, judging the pier’s understructure too weak for large crowds.
Today the pier is still a working gateway. Island Line trains run to the pier head for the catamaran to Portsmouth, and the old tramway deck reopened as a walkway in June 2023.
Sandown: the pier that kept changing
Sandown Pier first opened at just 360ft at the end of the 1870s and was extended to around 875ft in 1895, with a pavilion at the pier head. A 1,000-seat pavilion at the shore end followed in October 1934, and after a rebuild Lord Mountbatten reopened the pier in July 1973. Its theatre drew names such as Jimmy Tarbuck and Ray Alan.
On August Bank Holiday 1989, a fire that broke out in the amusement arcade spread into the theatre and caused about £2 million of damage. The pier was fully reopened by June 1990, but the theatre closed in 1997, and bowling and golf took its place. Today the pier still has amusements, bowling and adventure golf, and it is free to walk on.
A laughing sailor on Culver Road
On shore, Sandown’s first amusement park opened on Culver Road at Whitsun 1926. It was the idea of Gertrude Emma Taylor, a Shanklin resident, who got it built only after long arguments with the council. Its wireless loudspeaker could, it was claimed, be heard at the pier head, drowning out the ballroom orchestra. When the park’s music licence was argued over in court, her representative told the magistrates: “Sandown is waking up.”
After the Second World War the park reopened under new owners and was probably at its height in the 1950s and early 1960s. Just inside the first door stood a cabinet holding a large dummy sailor who, for a penny, would break into guffaws of laughter. Another arcade, next to the Blue Lagoon swimming pool at the western end of the Esplanade, had opened on 19 May 1934; it was the first to reopen after the war, eleven days after VE Day. The Culver Road park closed in 1970, and before the site was rebuilt its penny-slot machines were burnt and the metal sent for scrap.
Shanklin: the pier the storm took
Shanklin Pier opened on 18 August 1890 and ran 1,200ft out to sea. Its pavilion burned down in 1918 and was rebuilt, and among the new pavilion’s early visitors was the ballerina Anna Pavlova. In the early hours of 16 October 1987, the Great Storm wrecked the pier, and its theatre sank to the seabed. South Wight Borough Council bought what was left for £25,000 and had it demolished in February 1993. Ventnor’s last pier was demolished at about the same time.
Today Shanklin’s seafront still has a traditional amusement arcade, and the cliff lift, finished in 1892, still runs in the summer months.
From the seafront to the screen
The games themselves have moved with the times. The laughing sailor and Culver Road’s penny slots are long gone, and today some adults play slots for real money online. That should only ever be on sites licensed by the Gambling Commission, and it is for over-18s only. Every spin is random, and the house edge applies whichever game is chosen.
Some things have not moved at all. Ryde Pier still reaches nearly half a mile into the Solent, and the view from its end still runs across to Portsmouth, four miles away.
18+ only. Treat any game as paid entertainment, never a way to make money. Free, confidential help 24/7: National Gambling Helpline, 0808 8020 133.
