Blackpool Tower

1894 · Steel Lattice Tower · Work 72 of 1,871

Blackpool Tower, 1894, Steel Lattice Tower

Blackpool Tower rising from its brick base building on the promenade, latticed steel legs tapering to a crow's nest, the ballroom block and seafront tramway at its foot.

What it was used for
An amusement business with a tower on top, built by the Blackpool Tower Company, founded in 1891 under John Bickerstaffe. The tower's four legs stand inside a multi-storey building housing a ballroom, an aquarium and a circus ring between the legs. Admission was sixpence for the buildings and another sixpence for the lift to the top: the tower was the bait, the building was the business. It opened on 14 May 1894 with about 70,000 visitors on the first day; after two years of operation the company reported £30,000 profit, and tower and buildings had cost about £290,000 by 1896. The circus still performs. Since 2010 the complex has belonged to Blackpool Council.
What was new
The model was the Eiffel Tower, five years older, but the material was different: Paris is puddled iron, Blackpool is steel. The tower alone contains 2,493 tons of steel and 93 tons of cast iron against 7,300 tonnes of metal in Paris; with about a third of the material it reaches barely half the height. The price is an extreme taper: 30 metres wide at the base down to nine metres below the main gallery, braced horizontally every nine metres. There was another price. The very arrangement that made the tower pay put its legs inside a damp, heated amusement building on the Irish Sea: between 1920 and 1924 the steelwork had to be renewed. Painting it from top to bottom still takes seven years.

Connections

Every connection names its kind. “Forerunner” on its own would be a claim.

  1. Follows fromTour Eiffel1889Grace's Guide: "Inspired by the Eiffel Tower (1889) in Paris, the Blackpool Tower Co was formed to erect a steel structure on Blackpool's seafront which was similar in appearance, but approximately half the height." The ICE states the same. The material differs: Blackpool is steel, Paris puddled iron.Source: Grace's Guide to British Industrial History: Blackpool Tower · Institution of Civil Engineers: Blackpool Tower, an icon of British engineering

Further reading