The pioneer of promenade piers in England was the old chain pier at Brighton, erected in 1822-3. It was founded on oak piles, was 1,136 ft. long and was destroyed by a gale in Dec. 1896. The length of promenade piers depends mainly on the distance from the shore at which sufficient depth is reached for steamers. Thus piers at Southend (Essex) and Southport (Lancs.) have been constructed across the wide sands in the estuaries of the Thames and Ribble respectively; the former over II m., the latter nearly a mile in length.
Works on bridge and other foundations are noted at the end of the article CAISSON. (N. G. G.) In Architecture.—A pier in architecture is a vertical support carrying arches, a vault, a floor or a roof ; especially one rectangu lar in plan ; also, in mediaeval work, any support between the nave and aisles of a church. During the late Roman imperial period, pier design was carefully studied and in connection with such buildings as the basilicas, cross-shaped and other compound piers were developed to carry the cross arches and the groins or intersections of the vaulting. With the increasing use of vault
ing for church naves and aisles, during the iith and 12th centuries, pier design was still further developed. Although in England Norman piers are frequently great round columns, on the conti nent of Europe piers became common in which each arch or vaulting rib above was carried by a separate member of the pier. The earliest logical expression of this idea is found in Italian Lombard work, where a square pier has frequently an engaged column attached to each face ; the one on the nave side carrying the cross-rib of the nave vault, that on the aisle side carrying the aisle vault cross-rib, and those on the other two sides carry ing the pier arches between nave and aisles.
During the later Romanesque, pier plans were further compli cated by the addition of smaller members to carry the subsidiary mouldings of the arches above, and larger members to carry the diagonal vaulting ribs. (See BYZANTINE AND ROMANESQUE ARCHI