Jennifer Lopez Gets Loud for Hillary Clinton at Get Out The Vote concert on October 29, 2016 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Larry Marano/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A Chinese girl touches the gun of a relievo featuring Chinese soldiers fighting with Japanese troops during World War II at an exhibition at the Anti-Japan War Museum to mark the 60th Anniversary of the Victory of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japan on August 18, 2005 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Cancan Chu/Getty Images)

A brown bear is checked by foreign veterinaries and local staff members at the Four Paws Bear Sanctuary in Pristina, on May 9, 2014. (Photo by Hazir Reka/Reuters)

A Brazil fan enjoys the atmosphere prior to the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil Semi Final match between Brazil and Germany at Estadio Mineirao in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, on Jule 8, 2014. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

A resident looks into a newly-built giant trash can, partially buried underground, next to a street in Taiyuan, Shanxi province November 6, 2014. The trash can, which has a diameter of 1.9 meters and a depth of 2.8 meters, could contain approximately 10 cubic metres of garbage. It was built to replace an open-air garbage dump site, local media reported. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

A woman is tattooed by an artist during Warsaw Tattoo Convention 2014 in Warsaw November 29, 2014. (Photo by Kacper Pempel/Reuters)

A Rohingya Muslim from Myanmar (R), who tried to cross the Naf river into Bangladesh to escape sectarian violence, cries near his family in a Bangladeshi Coast guard station in Teknaf on June 19, 2012, before being sent back to Myanmar. (Photo by Munir Uz Zaman/AFP Photo)

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”)