Standing alone in the North Sea, the once-glorious Herne Bay pier head looks frail and weathered, with the facade of the former restaurant left to rot and be picked apart by nesting birds.

Loved by urban explorers and drone photographers, the previously picture-perfect pier has become a symbol of decay.

Various pieces of the main building are scattered among the deck and chunks of walkway have fallen from the platform, lost to the sea many moons ago.

Now and then, fresh pictures of the derelict monument looking battered and bruised surface and reopen talks about what should be done.

This time it was the turn of Andrew Martinez Piggott, whose drone shots sparked the latest round of concerns over the site - a sentiment shared by the photographer.

The 48-year-old told KentOnline: “Every time I go out there, it's just like it's getting worse. How much longer it's going to stand there for, I'm not sure.

“The main structure that holds the dome bit just looks like it's ready to fall.

“I've been flying drones for about five years, so I'll probably go out to it at least two or three times a year and it's just being left out there to ruin, which is such a shame.”

Compared to archive images of the pier in days gone by, the difference is stark.

But despite the concerns, Canterbury City Council, which is responsible for the landmark, insists it is in a “reasonable condition with a level of corrosion and deterioration you would expect for a maritime structure of its age with no routine maintenance”.

Works took place almost four years ago in a bid to “stabilise and prolong the life” of the dome structure - a project which came after a separate photographer’s photos in 2019 sparked fears the ageing edifice would “not make it through the winter”, with the building seemingly appearing to be held up by a single plank of wood.

In days gone by people often tried to get the pier restored to its former glory but efforts fell flat – an experience shared by many in the past 75 years.

The lure of other destinations and the rise in air travel meant Herne Bay simply wasn’t as attractive a holiday destination anymore, while modern-day attempts to reconnect the pier have been thwarted by a lack of funding.

Perhaps it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to see few investors willing to bankroll the rebuilding of a pier which caught fire twice, has been damaged by adverse weather countless times and would be a multi-million-pound project.

But despite the Herne Bay Pier Trust, which manages the venue, officially shutting down talks of extending the active part of the pier at all last year, there is still hope.

Green Party city councillor Andrew Harvey spoke of his support of the ambitious scheme to KentOnline, saying: “I think really it's the top that's the worry - that's going to fall over.

“I think the steelwork underneath is maintained. I know these pictures surface every now and then and it always seems to get worse and be on a bit of a lean.

“Really, I think the pier should be extended back to how it was - so rebuild it, incorporate some decent tidal energy on there so it's actually paying for itself and bring some money and some people into the town.

“We could get the ferries coming back in and the day-trippers on the pedal steamers - the Waverley runs down the estuary every year, that could be calling at Herne Bay again.

“I think it'd be fabulous - we could run a boat service up to London, run a commuter service up to London.

“Why not? These days we've got technology to do these sorts of things.”

Whether or not the grand vision of Herne Bay will ever be realised is yet to be seen but even to this day, the council does make use of the facility in some capacity.

Wave and tide data are transmitted from the pier head, which provides the only real-time data for north Kent, and it also hosts navigational lights on a mast – with maintenance visits on these carried out twice a year.

A council spokesperson said: "The current policy is to continue to monitor the structure - there are certainly no plans to demolish it.

"The grand vision to connect the pierhead and land section comes up from time to time and our position on this has remained consistent for many years.

"We do not have the money to carry out this hugely expensive and complex project, but would always be willing to listen to credible and financially viable ideas from the community."

And with that, the pier head will stay - perhaps for a lifetime of loneliness and residents’ longing for the pitter-patter of feet on its timber.

But it wasn’t always this way.

The pier was formerly a popular haunt in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. People would flock there to take in the fresh sea air.

Completed in 1899, it stretched out more than 3,700 feet and had a tram system. The pier head was used as a steam ferry terminal with boats coming and going from London and Southend-on-Sea.

It was the third version of the feature to make an appearance in the 19th century, with the original being demolished in the 1870s and the second pier being taken over by the deep-sea jetty in response to crippling financial issues.

Once the second-longest in England, the pier captivated tourists and was the place to be for a number of decades, with the pier head the crown of the attraction.

But the North Sea flood of January 1978 and a subsequent storm in February 1979 saw the majority of the pier linking the now-demolished pavilion to the pier head give way.

The rest was dismantled for safety reasons in 1980 and although the two storms - just 13 months apart - delivered the final blow, the decline of the attraction was set in motion decades before.

During the Second World War, the centre of the pier was blown up to prevent enemy landings.

It was later replaced by two temporary Bailey timber and steel bridges, designed to be low-cost and low-effort but with a far shorter life span than the structure that preceded it.

With a disrupted substructure due to the explosions and a fundamentally weaker walkway, the writing was on the wall long before it gave way.

The pier always had an element of chaos to accompany the glitz and glamour.

It was nearly destroyed before it even opened due to a storm in 1897, while in 1901, a tram accident killed a woman after the electric vehicle drove through the railings, dragging the car with it.

Initially privately owned, a scandal which saw the managing director of the pier company jailed for five years for embezzling funds from Holborn Borough Council in 1904 led to Herne Bay Urban District Council taking on the site five years later for £6,000 – the equivalent of £598,000 today.

The pier has been publicly owned ever since.

The head was extended by the council shortly after it took over in a bid to host larger vessels.

And in 1910, the Grand Pavilion opened at a cost of £2,000 (£197,000 in today’s money) and boasted seating for 1,000 people with a large auditorium and multi-purpose floor used for roller skating, dancing, public events and community activities.

The same structure was destroyed by fire in 1970 during renovation works, though a replacement sports and leisure centre was officially opened by former prime minister Sir Edward Heath on September 5, 1976.

The First World War wouldn’t dampen the spirits of those running the pier, with the attraction remaining open throughout the conflict.

But in the Second World War, the army covered it in barbed wire and turned it into a camouflage netting factory.

Between these battles, the old wooden theatre at the entrance to the pier which had been retained from the second version of the jetty was destroyed by fire in 1928.

In November 1941, a Wellington bomber crashed into the sea to the east of the pier whilst the first jet airspeed record was made between Herne Bay Pier and Reculver by H J Wilson who reached 606 mph in a standard Gloster Meteor Mark IV in November 1945.

Handed back to its owners in 1945, the reparations paid by the military weren’t enough to fund all the repairs needed so money was allocated to repairing the Grand Pavilion, leading to the implementation of the previously-mentioned temporary bridges.

The tram was never revived after the war due to the Bailey bridges not being strong enough to support it and was sold in 1950 while the last steamer service took place in 1963 by the ‘Medway Queen’.

Multiple bouts of severe weather ranging from storms to the Big Freeze of 1963 left the majority of the pier’s foundations unsafe.

So although officially disconnected after the storms of the 1970s, the insurance for the pier to the north of the pavilion was actually withdrawn in 1968 – meaning the public was excluded from accessing the old pier head for 10 years before its demise.

After being disconnected, the much shorter pier hosted the rebuilt pavilion until 2012 and in recent years has seen a resurgence in business and popularity.