Guanacos sit during a signing ceremony in Patagonia Park, Chile, January 29, 2018. Chilean President Michelle Bachelet signed decrees Monday creating vast new national parks using lands donated by U.S. conservation organization Tompkins Conservation in what is believed to be the largest private donation of land ever from a private entity to a country. (Photo by Esteban Felix/AP Photo)

Animals destined for the stage of Radio City Music Hall in New York on November 13, 1986 are led to the stage door by their co-stars, the Rockettes dancers. A variety of animals, including camels, sheep and donkeys, will star in an annual Christmas production. (Photo by G. Paul Burnett/AP Photo)

Arizona Cardinals cheerleader Claire Thorton, center, smiles as Air Force Capt. Eric Straub proposes to her during the first half of an NFL football game against the Washington Redskins, Sunday, October 12, 2014, in Glendale, Ariz. Thorton accepted the proposal. (Photo by Rick Scuteri/AP Photo)

Kendall Jenner seen at Universal, NBC, Focus Features, E! Entertainment Golden Globes After Party Sponsored by Chrysler on Sunday, January 8, 2017, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Eric Charbonneau/Invision for Focus Features/AP Images)

Photographers work on the red carpet after the screening of the film “Mad Max: Fury Road” out of competition at the 68th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France, May 14, 2015. (Photo by Regis Duvignau/Reuters)

A resident of the Goodwin House senior living community, looks on as the DC area motown band “The Tribe” plays a social distance concert in their parking lot in Arlington, Virginia, during the coronavirus pandemic on April 14, 2020. (Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP Photo)

Director Lars Von Trier attends the “Melancholia” photocall at the Palais des Festivals during the 64th Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2011 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

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”)