Miss Mostyn walks Llandudno Pier, tolerates the kiosks and tells you where the real reward is.

Llandudno Pier is the longest pier in Wales, stretching approximately 700 metres (2,295 feet) into the bay with the confidence of a gentleman who has never been asked to justify his waistcoat.

It opened in 1877 and is Grade II* listed, which places it among the more significant Victorian structures on the North Wales coast. The Grade II* designation is not given lightly; it means more than quaint, and less than nationally priceless, which puts it in the same position as several senior members of the bar.

I have walked it more times than I care to count, and I will tell you plainly: the kiosks are not the point. Nor are the amusements, the sugar, the noise or the commerce dressed up in bunting like a minor scandal at a summer fete.

The point is to walk to the end and look back. There is the town, arranged along the bay, with the hotels standing in line and the Great Orme behind them like a chaperone who knows precisely what happened after dinner.

The pier was designed by the engineers Brunlees and McKerrow and extended in the 1880s. A pavilion at the head once served as a concert venue and later as a theatre. The current state is a familiar pier mix: refreshments, amusements, rides and a kiosk-lined walkway that rewards the visitor chiefly by eventually running out.

Some parts of the pier are charming. Some are frankly tacky. This is a pier, not a duchess’s linen cupboard. One must allow a little vulgarity, provided it knows its place.

The structure is maintained, which should be noted without surprise. Many Victorian piers have deteriorated through neglect, storm damage or the sheer expense of maintaining iron and timber in salt air. Llandudno’s has survived in usable form, and for that one extends the pier a grudging respect before complaining about the toffee apple prices.

Go early for air and structure. Go late for softer light. Go in the middle of the day if you wish to observe humanity attempting to manage chips, gulls, children and regret.

The pier is not refined from end to end, but refinement is not the point. Walk out, turn around, and let Llandudno make its case. Everything else is just commerce with a paper napkin.

The view back from the end (the full crescent of the bay, the hotel frontage, the Great Orme to the left and the Little Orme to the right) is Llandudno’s best argument. It has been making that argument since 1877, and it has not yet been seriously answered.