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 woman walks with her child past a Soyuz rocket, installed as a monument at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, the world's first and largest operational space launch facility, in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, Saturday, November 12, 2016. The new Soyuz mission to the International Space Station (ISS) is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 18. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

In this Monday, July 25, 2016 photo, skydiver Luke Aikins smiles as he jumps from a helicopter during his training in Simi Valley, Calif. After months of training, this elite skydiver says he's ready to leave his chute in the plane when he bails out 25,000 feet above Simi Valley on Saturday. That's right, no parachute, no wingsuit and no fellow skydiver with an extra one to hand him in mid-air. (Photo by Jae C. Hong/AP Photo)

Experts of the Anti-Mine Center of the Russian Defense Ministry clear mines at a motorway linking the cities of Stepanakert and Goris in Nagorno-Karabakh on November 23, 2020. (Photo by Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS)

In this image released on February 5th – Models walk the runway at the Cihan Nacar show on February 04, 2021 in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Photo by Ferhat Zupcevic/Getty Images for Cihan Nacar)

A young girl works at a construction site in Patiala district, Rajpura, India on November 20, 2019. (Photo by Saqib Majeed/Barcroft Media)

Undated BBC handout photo of a female two-coloured Mason Bee carrying a dried grass stalk back to her snail-shell nest on the British Isles in the latest episode of Sir David Attenborough's Wild Isles series. Issue date: Sunday March 26, 2023. (Photo by John Walters/Silverback Films/BBC/PA Wire)

A man stands on breakwater with his bike along the waterfront in Auckland, New Zealand, Sunday, February 12, 2023. New Zealand's national carrier has canceled dozens of flights as Aucklanders brace for a deluge from Cyclone Gabrielle, two weeks after a record-breaking storm swamped the nation's largest city and killed several people. (Photo by Alex Burton/NZ Herald via AP Photo)