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”)

A picture made available 26 April 2016 shows a tiger playing in the water with a trainer nicknamed “Super Tiger Man” at the Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi province, Thailand, 24 April 2016. The site known in Thai as “Wat Pa Luangta Maha Bua Yannasampanno” has been the focus of a dispute with the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) after the DNP asked in 2015 that the temple hands over its 147 tigers since it was not licensed to keep them. The temple has requested for a zoo license according to its managing director. (Photo by Diego Azubel/EPA)

George Harrison of the Beatles sits cross-legged with his musical mentor, Ravi Shankar of India, a sitar virtuoso, in Los Angeles, August 3, 1967, as Harrison explains to newsmen that Shankar is teaching him to play the sitar, a 25-stringed guitar-like instrument. Harrison said “Indian music makes God come through in a spiritual way”. (Photo by AP Photo)

People dressed as a dancing devils with giant mask dance on a street, during a traditional celebration in Naiguata, Venezuela, Thursday, May 31, 2018. Carrying in their hands striking masks mostly animals and sea monsters, hundreds of men, women and children went out to dance frantically as possessed by evil spirits in an ancient ritual known as Dancing Devils of Naiguata, the unorthodox way of the coastal towns of Venezuela to venerate God during the celebrations of Corpus Christi. (Photo by Ariana Cubillos/AP Photo)

Ardent fisherman Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox appears to have hooked Frances Flajnik, Tempe queen of Anglers World Series, March 15, 1960. (Photo by AP Photo)

People out in Manchester town centre, United Kingdom on September 20, 2020. The latest Public Health England data shows that 672 new cases of Covid-19 were recorded in the city in the seven days to September 17. (Photo by Danny Lawson/PA Images via Getty Images)

Pregnant revelers dance during a street pre-carnival party by the “Cordao do Boitata” Block, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, February 12, 2023. Revelers are taking to the streets for the open-air block parties, leading up to Carnival's official Feb. 17th opening. (Photo by Bruna Prado/AP Photo)

Annabelle, 13, and her sister Estelle, 10, both artistic gymnasts from Borna, hang from the rings during their training, ahead of the Special Olympics World Games Berlin 2023, the world's largest sports movement for people with intellectual disabilities, at the Federal base for competitive gymnastic artistics in Chemnitz, Germany on May 6, 2023. (Photo by Annegret Hilse/Reuters)