Logan Kanan handfeeding Hammerhead sharks in a tank at Neal Watson's Bimini Scuba Center in the Bahamas in August 2023. (Photo by Ken Kiefer/Caters News Agency)

Monkeys sit along a street during a snowfall in Ayubia, some 75 km north of Islamabad, Pakistan on January 7, 2020. (Photo by Aamir Qureshi/AFP Photo)

A dog looks at a five-meter-long sperm whale stranded at San Bartolo beach, in Lima, on August 20, 2019. Surfers and policemen saved Tuesday an injured whale which remained stranded some hours at a beach in southern Lima, police informed. (Photo by Ernesto Benavides/AFP Photo)

A man wearing a Transformers costume appeals to the citizens to stay at a home amid coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Bandung, West Java Province, Indonesia, May 4, 2020. (Photo by Raisan Al Farisi/Antara Foto via Reuters)

Members of Ankara Women's Orchestra, playing different instruments, are seen in Ankara, Turkiye on November 13, 2024.The orchestra, founded by 19 women of different ages and professions, gives concerts to female audiences with their wide repertoire in different languages and styles. (Photo by Esra Hacioglu Karakaya/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Revellers light firecrackers during Diwali, a Hindu festival of lights, in New Delhi on November 12, 2023. (Photo by Sajjad Hussain/AFP Photo)

A woman wearing a burka, walks along a kans grass flower field, at Sarighat area in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on September 19, 2025. (Photo by Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters)

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”)