50°44′12″N 1°09′38″W / 50.736721°N 1.160623°W / 50.736721; -1.160623

Ryde Pier is an early 19th century pier serving the town of Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England. It is the world's oldest seaside pleasure pier. Ryde Pier Head railway station is at the sea end of the pier, and Ryde Esplanade railway station at the land end, both served by Island Line trains.

Before the pier was built, passengers had the uncomfortable experience of coming ashore on the back of a porter and then, depending on the state of the tide, having to walk as far as half a mile across wet sand before reaching the town. The need for a pier was obvious, especially if the town was to attract the wealthy and fashionable visitors who were beginning to patronise other seaside resorts.

The pier was designed by John Kent of Southampton. It was authorised by the Ryde Pier Act 1812 (52 Geo. 3. c. cxcvi), and its foundation stone laid on 29 June 1813. The pier opened on 26 July 1814, with, as it still has, a timber-planked promenade. The structure was originally wholly timber and measured 576 yards (527 m). By 1833, extensions took the overall length to 745 yards (681 m). It is this pre-Victorian structure that has, with some modifications, carried pedestrians and vehicles ever since.

A second 'tramway' pier was built next to the first, opening on 29 August 1864. Horse-drawn trams took passengers from the pier head to the esplanade. The Ryde Pier Tramways Act 1865 (28 & 29 Vict. c. cccxlvi) authorised the Ryde Pier Company to extend the tramway to the Isle of Wight Railway's St John's Road station.

The Ryde Station Act 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. c. ccciii) created the Ryde Station Company, and authorised the construction of a railway from the Isle of Wight Railway to St. John's Road. The Ryde Pier Railways Act 1867 (30 & 31 Vict. c. lix) and the Ryde Pier Railway Extension Act 1870 (33 & 34 Vict. c. cxxxvi) combined the two schemes into a single extension of the tramway, and permitted conversion to mechanically-powered vehicles. The extension was abandoned a decade later following construction of the railway pier. From 1886 to 1927, the trams were powered by electricity from a third rail, and from then until 1969 were petrol-powered.

On 12 July 1880, a third pier was opened, alongside the first two, providing a direct steam railway link to the pier-head. It was severely damaged on 18 January 1881, when four ships, the Eclipse, Havelock, John Ward and Lucknow, were driven through it, destroying 200 feet (61 m) of the pier. The railway was part of the Portsmouth and Ryde Joint Railway (a company owned jointly by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway and London and South Western Railway), as far as Ryde St John's Road, to connect with their ship services to Portsmouth. However, trains were run by the independent Isle of Wight Railway and Isle of Wight Central Railway, who owned the tracks beyond St John's Road and operated services to Ventnor and Cowes via Newport respectively.

In 1895, a concert pavilion was constructed at the pier-head, and over the next sixteen years, the original wooden piles were replaced with cast iron. It was at Ryde Pier that the Empress Eugénie landed from Sir John Burgoyne's yacht "The Gazelle", after her flight from Paris in 1870.^{[citation needed]}