Piers are remarkable things. Remnants of a former era when British seaside resorts were thriving places, they stick their necks out against the tide in more ways than one. And they are all remarkable in different ways. It’s not the longest, shortest or oldest, but Boscombe Pier, near Bournemouth in Dorset has come to be known as Britain’s coolest.

In contrast to the delicate wrought-iron and ornate detail of Britain’s Victorian piers, Boscombe Pier is a modern streamlined affair. It has an audacious, almost Googie-style entrance with a geometric cantilevered roof, for all intents and purposes like the wings of a jet. The message is clear – Boscombe Pier has landed.

Like many of its peers (sorry) Boscombe Pier has not had its troubles to seek. Originally built in 1888, it had no head until 1926. It was partly demolished for security reasons during the Second World War and lay in a sorry state until the 1950s. Opinion was divided on what to do next. A war of words broke out in the Beaches and Pavilion Committee with one councillor proclaiming “Piers are really redundant” and another that “A seaside without a pier is like a pig without ears”.

The consensus was that Boscombe needed a lift and the pier was rebuilt. The borough architect, John Burton, designed the terribly modish entrance building in line with the Modernist style of the late-1950s. The pier neck was rebuilt in reinforced and pre-stressed concrete (so this one shouldn’t burn down) and The Mermaid Theatre at the head was opened in 1962 with the ultimate in modern entertainment – a roller rink.

Over time its popularity faded and The Mermaid Theatre closed in 1989. It was later demolished, and as the entrance building was also closed for health and safety reasons the future of the pier looked bleak once again. A council survey in 2003 showed overwhelming support for the pier’s regeneration, and Grade II listing ensured that its character was kept intact. Plans were drawn up for some big names to put Boscombe back on the map.

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Posted by Anne on June 28, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (1)

The crypt of St Leonard’s Church in Hythe contains one of only two ossuaries in the UK (the other is in Rothwell, Northants). It holds over 2,000 skulls arranged neatly along the walls and 8,000 bones in a huge pile stacked almost to the ceiling - like a macabre game of Jenga. When death is such a taboo these days it’s a shock to see so much of it staring you in the face.

Seeing so many skulls in one go makes them less of a sinister object and more of an anthropological souvenir. They come in all shapes and sizes, some with axe wounds and congenital deformities – a sign of the times. One even shows a trepanning wound, where a hole was drilled in the skull and miraculously, the patient survived. A table of jawbones shows rows of teeth in surprisingly good shape. In those days refined sugar wasn’t part of the diet and the greatest dental hazard was tough bread.

This collection is gold dust for those want to know more about the health and genetic make-up of our predecessors. The numbers stamped on to each skull are signs of a study that took place in the 1930s. When I visited, a forensic anthropology student from Bournemouth University was working away with a craniometer, measuring the skulls one by one. The owners hope that new technology will reveal more about the lives of the people who came to rest here.

There have been many theories about how such a large collection got here – as the result of a Saxon battle or a wave of the Black Death. The mostly likely explanation is less dramatic, simply that an existing burial ground was disturbed during the building of the new church in the 13th Century.

At that time ossuaries were relatively commonplace. Bodies were only buried for a short while before being dug up again. The skulls and femurs (thigh bones) were kept as they were the two strongest bones and it was thought that their preservation was enough to guarantee passage into the afterlife. This might seem horribly disrespectful by today’s standards but it was a sign that the physical body wasn’t important. The soul had already ascended to heaven and so the body returned to dust.

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Posted by Anne on June 21, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Scotland is famous for many things – tartan, whisky and beautiful scenery to name a few, but a modern invention has brought it fame and shame in equal measure. News reports on Scotland’s abysmal health record are almost always sprinkled with references to that culinary legend, the deep-fried Mars Bar.

So what is it about deep-fried food that makes it so special, so delicious? In Scotland every town has its chippy, serving fish, sausages and even haggis as ‘singles’ or ‘suppers’ (that means served with chips). For decades, the deep-fried pizza has been a permanent fixture – delighting Scots and horrifying more health conscious onlookers. So wrong, and yet so right.

Rewind to 1995 when the deep-fried Mars Bar was first spotted in the Haven Fish Bar in Stonehaven on Scotland’s north-east coast. Now called The Carron, it has been serving them ever since, and the huge ‘Home of the deep fried Mars bar’ banner outside suggests that they are not embarrassed by the ignominy it has brought the nation as a whole.

In truth, despite their worldwide fame, they are not actually that common (and Scots don’t live off them). They can be easily found in tourist traps like Edinburgh’s Royal Mile but in 2004, The Lancet (yes, The Lancet) surveyed the availability of said treats and only found them in 22% of chip shops. I’m not sure what that proves. In other areas, inventive souls riffed on the idea, most famously The Reiver Fish Bar in Duns which has diversified into deep-fried Cadbury’s Creme Eggs. Oy.

So, the million dollar question - what does a deep-fried Mars Bar taste like? I chose a ‘single’ - you can order it with chips, but that’s just wrong - and it was freshly made to order. It looks more or less as you’d expect, like a Mars bar in batter - not particularly pleasing to the eye. However, the batter is crispy and light, encasing the sweet hot goo inside which runs out on first bite. It’s sweet and savoury, crispy and gooey – in short, a taste sensation.

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Posted by Anne on June 07, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (1)