Twentieth Century
In the early 1970s the pier was substantial strengthened with major steelwork renovations taking place. It was leased from the local council by Jim Davidson in 1996 and he soon found out how hard it was to repair. He invested around £750,000 of his own money, this was spent on the inside, but the outside was left as the lottery or local projects did not fund it. So it stood empty till is was demolished in 2005. By 2005 the front part of the pier has been totally re-developed as an amusement arcade.
Since taking over the lease from Jim Davidson, Family Amusements now run the entire Wellington and Wintergardens complex, along with the Britannia Pier further North on the seafront. The Winter Gardens is now a large children's indoor play area, with cafe and bar. Oddly, the aluminium trussing installed by Jim Davidson as part of the Wintergardens nightclub has been retained - as it looks very futuristic, all curves and strange shapes. By September 2008 the old theatre at the end of the pier has become a large bowling alley and bars. The original Steel, iron work has been restored and returned to the new building. The 100 year old original girders are now on show, and are visually interesting to see - having been originally hidden in the theatre roof space. The 'new' building is so similar to the (demolished) old theatre, that many visitors do not realise it is a new building. The ten lane full-size bowling alley takes up most of the space in what was the old auditorium and stage space. A stained glass picture which is 80 feet long and was found during the removal of the original Wellington pier theatre structure, has been restored and will be the centre piece of the entrance to the new complex. It depicts ships sailing into the port of Great Yarmouth.
Read more about this topic: Wellington Pier
Famous quotes related to twentieth century:
“If the twentieth century is to be better than the nineteenth, it will be because there are among us men who walk in Priestley’s footsteps....To all eternity, the sum of truth and right will have been increased by their means; to all eternity, falsehoods and injustice will be the weaker because they have lived.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“The descendants of Holy Roman Empire monarchies became feeble-minded in the twentieth century, and after World War I had been done in by the democracies; some were kept on to entertain the tourists, like the one they have in England.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the twentieth century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)
“Doubt, it seems to me, is the central condition of a human being in the twentieth century.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1947)
“The real passion of the twentieth century is servitude.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)