The 12 Oddest Things We Found Out Visiting Every Pier In England And Wales

A two week, two thousand mile road trip around the coast of the country. We saw beautiful beaches, perfect pleasure piers and smashing seas: but we also saw some of the strangest things Britain has to offer.

Of course some places have more life in than others…

Swanage pier museum has no budget, and possibly a serial killer working for them.

Not everyone is sure what the word 'pleasure' means

This is Weymouth Commercial and Pleasure Pier, it has no shops, and…

Sometimes the fast food joints have a confusing message

A vegetarian battered sausage, advertising something near Southsea’s Clarence Pier (which barely stops hugging the shore, so might not even be a real pier).

In fact, the humanising of food promotion is odd everywhere…

Goatse anyone?

Smile production has all but ceased in Cleethorpes

These days we import grins from China.

Everyone likes these things…

…but no-one knows what they're called. The French call them tintamarresques, we English 'seaside face-in-the-hole boards' — rubbish.

Danger lurks everywhere

In Whitby guns don't kill people, badgers kill people.

Composition is everything

Even the most dramatic skyline can be ruined by a bin. Goddammit.

Official character licensing hasn't reached Bournemouth

Thomas the Soul Engine. The tank engine with the face of a haunted baby.

Tribute act are a different thing to look-a-like acts

Maybe this venue just has poor lighting.

Great Yarmouth is a little, erm, 'behind the times'

Apparently, they’re called “gollys” now and everybody is fine with that. Hmmm…

It's not just the UK, even history is odder than you thought

In the thirties women kept lizard monkey hybrids as pets, maybe that's why they stopped drinking.

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12:45 PM - 26 Jan 2016

Read about our two weeks by the seaside, and the seaside, and the seaside, and the seaside…

Summersdale/Dan Mogford

Pier Review: A Road Trip in Search of the Great British Seaside - is available now…

"Peerless" - Danny Wallace

"Humour, nostalgia and a certain landlocked romanticism run through this coastal odyssey. Pier Review is an engaging and highly revealing sideways look at Britain from the margins." - Catherine O'Flynn

"I don't think I read books anymore, but if I did, I think this is the sort of book that I would read" - Bill Drummond