The Pier at Teignmouth, Devon

The featured image shows the entrance to the amusement arcade on the pier in Teignmouth, Devon. Although the arcade survived the winter storms, the pier did not. Half the structure was swept away in January 2026 by high seas raised by Storm Ingrid. Teignmouth neighbours Dawlish, whose seafront features in the next One Shot Story (later today). Both are classic seaside towns, although Teignmouth is somewhat larger and grander.

The pier was built in 1865 and must have survived many storms over the last 160 years, but storms seem more destructive now and England’s nineteenth century infrastructure is no match for natural forces in our time. The future of the pier is uncertain. It requires extensive repairs costing upwards of £1000000 and was uninsured.

The seafront near the pier has a couple of traditional amusements – this faded peep show sentry box has seen better days, although it seems it was renovated as recently as 2022. The peep show is decorated with an image of the seaside railway line built by I K Brunel in the nineteenth century. The line was considered a marvel of Victorian ingenuity and engineering, bringing the winding railway through a complex series of tunnels along the shoreline. The views are breathtaking. However, the line is now a fragile piece of infrastructure, subject to regular disruption due to winter storm damage and inundation.

The peep show would have been a popular form of Victorian and early Edwardian seaside entertainment. The sentry box now holds about half a dozen images of historical interest and the images can be glimpsed through the binocular viewing lenses. The broken paving stones at the foot of the peep show might be debris from the storm. The sea takes its toll.

Even in its weather worn state, the peep show box is a perfect example of the colourful seaside aesthetic, precisely observed by Philip Larkin (1922-1985) in the first lines of his poem To the Sea:

To step over the low wall that divides

Road from concrete walk above the shore

Brings sharply back something known long before –

The miniature gaiety of seasides.

To the Sea is the first poem in Larkin’s 1974 collection High Windows. This was Larkin’s last formal collection of poems. He was not a prolific poet but explored the English identity with an unflinching, iconoclastic eye for detail.

The images were recorded using a Pentax Auto 110 Super with wide angle lens using Lomography Tiger cartridge film rated at 100 ISO. Minor jpg editing in Shotwell open source image editing software.

Share this post: