have, however, presented Captain Brown with 1000 guineas since the completion of the work, over and above his estimated price.”
In a succeeding number of the same periodical we find the following paragraph:–
“About two years since, he (Commander Brown) erected a pier on this principle in Leith roads; while at the same time a solid stone pier, on the old principle, was erected near the same spot. The situation is a rough one, and in the course of the past winter (1821–2) the stone pier was so much shaken by the heavy gales, as to render it necessary to take it down; while the suspension pier of Captain Brown remained as firm as at its first erection.”
Commander Brown’s iron pier of suspension at Newhaven enables passengers to step on the deck of the steam-vessel, at all times of the tide, even at the lowest ebb, without having recourse to a small boat to go through the surf. It extends seven hundred feet into the ocean, from high water mark, and is a curious and remarkable object[1].
That elegant structure, the chain-pier at Brighton, was also projected and executed by Commander Brown; its foundation consists of four clumps of piles, two hundred and fifty-eight feet distant, driven nearly ten feet in the rock, and rising thirteen feet above high water. The first three clumps contain twenty piles each; the fourth, which is in the form of a T, contains one hundred and fifty perpendicular and diagonal piles, strongly braced, the cross part of which is paved with about two hundred tons of Purbeck stone, and beneath which galleries and flights of steps are constructed for the convenience of embarkation. The pier, which is one thousand one hundred and thirty-four feet long, and thirteen feet wide, with a neat cast-iron railing on each side, is supported by eight chains, each containing one hundred and seventeen links, ten feet long, six and a quarter in circumference, and weighing one hundred and twelve pounds, which are made fast in the cliff. From the cliff, the chains, four on each side, pass over a tower of cast-iron, one on each clump of piles, with a dip of eighteen feet, secured at the outer clump of
- ↑ See Hants Tel. 13th Aug. 1824.
