On one of his last visits to Brighton, King George IV stopped his carriage to look at a marvel of the modern age.

It was not the Royal Pavilion, which he had commissioned when still a prince and was one of the most extraordinary buildings in the world.

It was the Royal Suspension Chain Pier, a structure of almost equal importance to the future development of Brighton.

Before it was built, people wishing to board ships destined for France or English ports had to reach them by rowing boats, which tended to give them wet landings on the beach.

The Chain Pier enabled ships to use purpose-built landing stages for people to start their journeys.

It also stopped the practice of all imports to Brighton, such as coal and groceries, being landed and opened on the beach.

The pier was built in 1823 to the design of Captain Samuel Brown, a naval engineer who specialised in making suspension chains for bridges.

Extending 350 yards out from the sea wall near New Steine, it took less than a year to build and was unique in Britain.

Brown, who was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1838, had already built bridges and designed a more modest pier at Newhaven near Edinburgh.

But the Chain Pier was his masterpiece, combining strength with beauty. The chains were secured by huge metal plates in the cliff and went out to sea with the aid of elegant towers.

It was officially opened with an impressive fireworks display and later Brown held a ball at his house for 100 special guests.

Trade flourished when steam-boats began to visit Brighton in 1825, making sailing ships redundant. They offered journeys to Dieppe in France and the Isle of Wight.

But the pier was to be dogged by storms all its life. There was one in November 1824 which destroyed the toll house at the shore end.

In a much more serious storm nine years later, lightning struck the pier, starting a fire and transforming it into a ruin.

Shocked by its destruction, people in Brighton raised £1,300 for the pier to be mended and strengthened.

But in 1836, winds of near hurricane strength caused immense damage to the pier, which partially collapsed into the sea. This time an appeal for funds fell on deaf ears but it was still mended.

For many years, Brighton was the busiest cross-channel port thanks to the pier. However, the building of a railway line to Newhaven made that port a more attractive proposition.

And when the West Pier opened in 1866, it took away a great deal of the Chain Pier’s pleasure trade.

The pier slowly declined and work started on a replacement, to be called the Palace Pier, in 1896, so for a short time, Brighton had three piers.

But the Chain Pier was closed on safety grounds in October of that year and two months later it was completely destroyed in a great storm.

Wreckage damaged the two other piers and Volk’s Railway but not a trace of it remains today apart from a plaque on the cliff and two kiosks placed on the Palace Pier.