A Pier Without Peer

Graceful iron arches
Have spanned one fifty years
This famous Clevedon landmark
Most beautiful of piers

Victorian designers

Made use of Brunel’s rails

To craft this classic landing stage

For steamer trips from Wales

Pagoda at its pierhead

A toll house on the land

Opened then to much acclaim

With cannons and massed band

Countless generations
Have strolled its weathered boards

While anglers watch their lines in hope

Ignoring summer hordes

Collapse in 1970 -

That might have spelt the end

When those who lacked the vision said,

It is too dear to mend

John Betjeman its saviour
Knight Poet Laureate
He fought its demolition -
A most unworthy fate

And so the spans were raised anew

Our civic pride regained

For yet unborn Clevedonians

An asset now retained

Some piers they may be longer
And others labelled Grand
But Clevedon holds the title
Of fairest in the land.