THE Sussex seaside has been hitting the headlines of late with the tragic blaze at Eastbourne pier and the breaking of the ground for Brighton’s i360 tower.

The late 19th century is often seen as the golden age of the British seaside holiday and back then the shoreline certainly looked very different.

HENRY HOLLOWAY looks back at a big period for the Sussex seafront.

WHILE we may be gearing up for a new ultra modern observation tower in the form of the i360 on Brighton seafront, back when bathing machines lined the shore there was a variety of other seaside attractions.

With a now long gone third pier and a second electrical railway Brighton boomed as the Victorian ladies and gentlemen flocked to the sea thanks to the arrival of the first trains from London.

Everyone in Brighton knows the beaming lights of the Palace Pier and the burnt out West Pier, but the long-gone Royal Suspension Chain Pier pre-dates them both.

The Royal Suspension Chain Pier was the very first to be constructed in Brighton back in 1823, 43 years before the construction of the West Pier and 76 years before the Palace Pier.

Before Brighton was a pleasure resort, the city was one of many cross channel ports that accepted goods from all over the continent and the chain pier served as a docking pontoon for ships coming from Dieppe in France.

The chain pier eventually became a sight for tourists and the idea of a pleasure pier was seeded.

A toll booth for tourists was opened at the foot of the pier and kiosks selling seaside souvenirs and sweets began to open along its length to take advantage of the fast-growing commercial interest.

However with the arrival of the railway helping to boost Brighton’s fast-growing tourist trade it also served as the beginning of the end of the beloved chain pier.

In 1847 the railway was extended to reach Newhaven – a town with a much deeper port allowing for larger ships and larger amounts of cargo and taking away shipping business from the pier.

The chain pier began to decline, unable to sustain itself purely on tourism, and its demise was hastened by the opening of the West Pier in 1866.

When plans were announced for the Palace Pier, one of the conditions for planning was the demolition of the now dilapidated and abandoned chain pier.

But before demolition work could start a storm swept in on December 4, 1896 and washed the wreck away into the sea. That same storm almost destroyed another of Brighton’s now lost attractions.

If you venture down the seafront between Brighton and Rottingdean at low tide you may spy two parallel lines cutting through the sand, seaweed and surf. They are all that remains of one of the city’s most bizarre tourist traps.

The Brighton and Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway was a one-of-a-kind giant carriage on stilts that ploughed its way through the shallow waters.

The over-sea railway was the brainchild of Magnus Volk, an electrical engineer known for building the world’s first electric railway, also in Brighton, in 1883.

Volk, son of a German clockmaker, was born in 1851 and lived in Brighton on Dyke Road.

Volk’s Electric Railway, which ran between the Marina and the Palace Pier, is still in service today, but his much stranger creation has been lost to the pages of history.

Just a week before the opening of the over-sea railway it was almost struck by disaster as a storm destroyed one of the seashore railway’s terminal jetties and knocked the train car on its side.

The railway was repaired and Volk’s labour of love soon saw service, edging its way through the high tide at a leisurely 8mph.

The colossal clanking car, known affectionately as Daddy Long Legs or by its maker as Pioneer, stood on four seven metre high legs and weighed 46 tons.

It ferried passengers along the Sussex coast between Paston Place and Rottingdean The tramcar seated 150 people and was in service for five years, attracting droves of tourists to the seafront to experience its luxurious cabin and balmy open deck. George V, then The Prince of Wales, was one of the railway’s most notable passengers, making two trips on the Pioneer in one day on February 20, 1898.

But as more and more sea defences were built along the seafront, eventually Volk could no longer afford to make any more changes to the track to accommodate them, and the railway was closed forever.

Volk died in 1937 and is buried at St Wulfran’s Churchyard, Ovingdean.

His legacy as an electrical rail pioneer lives on at his railway on Brighton seafront alongside the Palace Pier and the wreck of the West Pier.