Quiz: How well do you know your seaside piers?

Piers are part of the British seaside, like sticks of rock and penny arcades. But how much have you discovered about these coastal runways to nowhere?

4 mins

1. Which celebrity chefs are associated with Southend-on-Sea Pier?

Gordon Ramsay, Rick Stein

Jamie Oliver, Jimmy Doherty

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Heston Blumenthal

James Martin, Tom Kerridge

2. Southend-on-Sea has the longest pleasure pier, but where is the world’s longest, a 6.5km disembarkation pier for cruise passengers?

Peru

Chile

Mexico

Brazil

3. Which pier was awarded Pier of the Year (now in its 24th year) by the National Piers Society in 2020?

Bournemouth

Clacton

Clevedon

Brighton Palace

4. Which British pier was yarn bombed in 2012 when a 50-metre long Olympic-themed woolly scarf mysteriously appeared on the handrails?

Swanage

Saltburn

Boscombe

Lowestoft South

5. In which British county would you find the ‘haunted’ pier that featured in an episode of the paranormal TV series Most Haunted?

Norfolk

Suffolk

Dorset

Kent

6. Visitors to Southwold can’t help but smile at the sight of its prominent clock. The question is, why?

It’s made out of rock candy

Characters ‘relieve themselves’ every 30 minutes

Punch and Judy perform every hour

It’s made out of arcade toys

7. In which seaside resort might you see people trying to fly off the pier as part of an annual Birdman event?

Bognor Regis

Blackpool

Southsea

Weymouth

8. Burnham-on-Sea is home to Britain’s shortest pier. How long is it?

11 metres

37 metres

24 metres

18 metres

9. Which island is home to the world’s oldest pier?

Jersey

Isle of Wight

Isle of Man

Isle of Skye

10. From which US pier might you see sea lions basking in the summer sunshine?

Santa Monica Pier

Ocean City Pier

Westgate Cocoa Beach Pier

Pier 39

11. Which Guinness World Record was broken at Brighton Pier in 2019?

Longest unassisted jump from a pier

Most candy floss eaten in one minute

Fastest speed in a suit powered by a jet engine

Most money won on an arcade machine

12. What is unusual about Birnbeck Pier in Weston-Super-Mare?

It connects the mainland to an island

It’s had 12 fires

It is the world’s widest pier

It inspired a hit song

13. Where in the world is this pier?

Durban, South Africa

New York, USA

Copenhagen, Denmark

Senigallia, Italy

14. Which famous writer described piers as ‘magnificent, while having no evident purpose at all’?

Louis Theroux

Stephen Fry

Bill Bryson

J K Rowling

15. On which country's pier can you go for a dip in a swimming pool?

Finland

Denmark

Spain

Greece

16. Which pier is known as ‘Easter Island’ after its boardwalk collapsed on Easter Monday in 1913?

Eastbourne Pier

Worthing Pier

Hastings

Felixstowe

17. What makes the construction of Roker Pier in Sunderland so interesting?

It was the first pier made from iron

It has its own tunnel

It has more wood than other piers

It floats

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