Brighton had one further major pier, the Brighton Chain Suspension Pier ("Chain Pier") of 1823. The pier was primarily intended as a landing stage for packet boats tro Dieppe , Brighton having no natural harbour, but it also featured a small number of attractions including initially a camera obscura. An esplanade with an entrance toll-booth controlled access to the pier which was roughly in line with today’s New Steine.Turner and Constable both did paintings of the pier, William IV landed on it, while the pier - designed by Captain Samuel Brown, RN - was even the subject of a song.

The Chain Pier survived the construction of the West Pier, but a condition for permission to build the Palace Pier was that the builders would dismantle the oldest pier. They were saved this task by a storm which destroyed the already closed and rather decrepit pier on December 4, 1896. The stubby remains of some of the pier’s iron piles, sunk ten feet into bedrock, can still be seen at the most extreme low tides.