Students from the private school Gabriel stand in line as they prepare to start their school day in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tuesday, January 9, 2024. (Photo by Odelyn Joseph/AP Photo)

A giraffe quenches its thirst at a watering hole at Zimanga Private Game Reserve, South Africa in the second decade of December 2023. (Photo by Janette Hill/Animal News Agency)

Andrey Rublev shouts at line judge while playing against Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan in their semifinal match during the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships at Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium on March 01, 2024 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Christopher Pike/Getty Images)

Isabeau Levito, of the United States, reacts at the end of her short program at the world figure skating championships in Montreal, Wednesday, March 20, 2024. (Photo by Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press via AP Photo)

A Pakistani policeman wades across floodwaters in Lahore on August 19, 2024. Flash floods triggered by the latest spell of monsoon rains are wreaking havoc across parts of Pakistan, claiming the lives of 14 people in the previous 24 hours, an official at the provincial disaster management authority said on August 19. (Photo by Tahir Jamil Khan/Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

A reveller drinks wine while waiting for the launch of the “Chupinazo” rocket, to mark the official opening of the 2023 San Fermín fiestas in Pamplona, Spain, Thursday, July 6, 2023. (Photo by Alvaro Barrientos/AP Photo)

Revellers get into the spirit of the 40th annual Zomercarnaval – summer carnival – in Rotterdam on July 28, 2024. The two-day event is such in integral part of Netherlands tradition it was added to Unesco’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list last year. (Phoot by James Petermeier/ZUMA Press Wire)

While the lido was described as bringing “modernism to the masses” on the British coast it was just the latest example of a trend that had been developing since Victorian times – transforming seaside towns into resorts for leisure and entertainment. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the fashion was for local authorities to build great piers stretching from the promenade out into the sea. The Eastbourne Pier, pictured here in May 1931, was erected between 1866 and 1870 to an ingenious design by Eugenius Birch, which saw the structure sitting on special cups allowing the supporting struts to “move” in bad weather. Arranged on the pier's 1,000-foot length were kiosks, a theatre, a ballroom and a camera obscura. 1931. (Photo by Aerofilms Collection via “A History of Britain From Above”)