Photo a day....14th May.

A couple of days ago I walked the dogs along Seagrove Bay, along where the pier used to be (blew down in the 50's.) I saw this row of stakes, almost disappeared, and wondered what they had been. They are parallel to the shore so I don't think they were a typical breakwater.
I thought I'd look at my old photos to see if I could spot it.
The hunt revealed these two old postcards, and a photo I took in the 90's.
This sepia postcard from 1913 shows the stakes clearly and I deduce that they were indeed a kind of breakwater, breaking the waves before they hit the sea wall. I suppose it would help it to last longer.
This one, being colour, was probably later than the first.
And this one shows what the same beach looks like today. The first family, partially hidden on the left, is a group of my family in the days when we would spend much of the time when we stayed here on holiday on the beach. We would stay until the tide came in and then go back to the camp for lunch, or dinner, depending on when the tide was.

This beach has been very popular since Victorian days. Pleasure steamers would bring day-trippers from Southsea to the Chain Pier, and they would stay on the beaches or shop in the village and then go home on the same boats in the evening.

I have some other old pictures of the village which I'll post sometime soon.