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Britannia Pier

pier with a theatre in Great Yarmouth, England

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ45843906
Source-derived summary

Britannia Pier is a pier located at the seaside town of Great Yarmouth in the English county of Norfolk.

History

Planning and construction

A new pier in Great Yarmouth was first proposed in 1856. It was authorised by the Great Yarmouth Britannia Pier Act 1857 (20 & 21 Vict. c. xxviii), with building work commencing in September 1857 with engineer, surveyor and antiquary Alfred William Morant (1828–81) as the designer. A. W. Morant went on to become City Surveyor for Norwich.

Original pier

The completed pier opened on 13 July 1858 at cost of £6,000 and was originally 700 feet long but this length was reduced by about 80 feet in 1859 when the sloop James and Jessie collided with the structure during the Royal Charter Storm. The length was again reduced as the result of storm damage in 1868. The pier was demolished in 1899.

New pier

The building of a new pier was autorised by the Great Yarmouth New Britannia Pier Act 1899 (62 & 63 Vict.

Editorial summary

“Britannia Pier” enters the record as pier with a theatre in Great Yarmouth, England. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Britannia, Pier and pier can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1856, 1857, 1828, 1858—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Britannia, Pier and pier.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Britannia Pier” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Britannia, Pier and pier provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q45843906. Authority coordinates are 52.608, 1.740. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1856, 1857, 1828 and 1858.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Britannia Pier”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Britannia Pier primary sources, Britannia Pier archive and Britannia research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Britannia Pier”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Britannia Pier” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.