Clarence Pier: Now With Added Grey

This is Clarence Pier.
Nobody knows why.

It opened in 1961 and hasn’t changed expression since. The top floor is used for secret meetings of Britain’s last remaining pencils.

The lower floor? That’s where gulls go to learn disappointment.

You’ll notice the building’s crown — a daring architectural swoosh, designed to suggest motion. In practice, it mostly collects drizzle and childhood trauma.

To the left, a chip shop advertises FUNLAND in cheery lettering, but the letters are lying. The fun has fled.
All that remains is a cash machine that only speaks in sighs and issues £10 notes printed on damp toast.

There is a man named Geoff who claims to live behind the red postbox.
We believe him.

📸 Photography tip (sort of):
This style — New Topographics — thrives on places like this.
Boring places. Forgotten edges. If you ever feel stuck, don’t look for drama.

Look for the ordinary — and photograph it like it’s trying to avoid being noticed. That’s where the real poetry lives.

New Topographics, they call it. Photographs of places that exist but wish they didn’t. Modern landscapes with the volume turned down.

Beauty in the bleak.
And in Clarence.