The 19th century expansion of the railways allowed a mass of tourists a direct route to seaside resorts for the first time.

By 1841 when the train first came to Brighton, the influx of visitors seeking a glimpse of the water was welcome but large tidal ranges meant it was not visible from dry land for most of the day.

Piers, made of wood, iron and used for sea trading, were the answer to giving holidaymakers a promenade over water at all times, and so the pleasure pier was created. At times they had two decks, were partly in the open air and partially sheltered, with amusements, music halls and theatres as part of the attraction.

The Brighton Chain Pier was one of the first on-the-water attractions to be built in England and kick started the city’s history of the structures. Completed in 1823, it was preceded only by two others in the UK – the Ryde Pier in 1813, and the Leith Trinity Chain Pier, in 1821. Only the oldest of those three structures still remain today, and the longest pleasure pier in the world is at Southend-on-sea in Essex, which reaches 2,158 metres across the Thames Estuary.

Brighton was historically a port spanning a 600 feet length of the seafront and when the Chain Pier initially opened, one of its functions was a landing stage for sailing ships between the city and Dieppe.

It also featured a camera obscura as one of its attractions, a gadget growing in popularity in the era as an optical device that led to photography and the camera, alongside stalls, fortune tellers and silhouette artists.

The pier was designed by Captain Sir Samuel Brown and there was an esplanade with an entrance toll-booth in line with New Steine where visitors were charged 2d.

The pier cost £30,000 to build and was 1,154 ft long. It was described as a one-ended suspension bridge. Its formal name was the Royal Suspension Chain Pier and it consisted of four cast-iron towers inspired by the Egyptian pylon, 260ft apart, standing on wooden piles.

The chains suspended from the towers supported the weight of the pier’s deck, and on the shore end the chains were buried into the face of the cliff, attached to steel plates set in concrete.

Artists John Constable and JMW Turner documented the pier in paintings, it was the subject of a song and King William IV landed on it.

Despite its popularity, interest in the Chain Pier dwindled. It was closed just 73 years later. Since, the city saw the building of the West Pier, which lasted from 1866 to 1996.

The ever popular Palace Pier was built in 1899.

A condition of building the Palace Pier was that builders would dismantle the Chain Pier, but they were saved the trouble when it was destroyed by a vicious storm on December 4 1896, after ten years of weathering which caused irreparable damage. By then the idea of piers for functional use had been replaced by often having them for entertainment.

To this day the pier remains popular and is celebrated as an historical landmark. In 2001 a rare model of the structure was sold to a Swiss buyer for £5,200 in an auction at Gorringes of Lewes.

On September 5, 2010, the Brighton and Hove mayor unveiled a replica plaque at the site of the chain pier, replacing an original which went missing years before.

In September an original postcard featuring the pier fetched more than £90 at an auction at St Leonard’s Church Hall in Hove.