Solid Light, an exhibition of the immersive works of Anthony McCall, opens at Tate Modern in London on June 25, 2024. Installations use beams of light projected through a thin mist to create large three-dimensional forms. (Photo by Guy Bell/Alamy Live News)

Performers take part in a procession as part of the Samhuinn Fire Festival on October 31, 2024 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Samhuinn Fire Festival is a modern take on an ancient Celtic festival, marking the transition between summer and winter with fire-dancing, drums, acrobatics, and theatre performances. (Photo by Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images)

This photograph shows installing of the artwork of Venezuelan-US artist Alex Da Corte titled “Kermit the Frog, Even” at Place Vendome in Paris, on October 19, 2025, ahead of the official opening of the Art Basel contemporary and modern art market. (Photo by Dimitar Photo)

A woman smokes a cigar as she reads the newspaper in a street of Havana, on November 26, 2016, the day after Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro died aged 90. One of the world's longest-serving rulers and modern history's most singular characters, Castro defied 11 US administrations and hundreds of assassination attempts. (Photo by Yamil Lage/AFP Photo)

A member of staff at Morton & Eden holds an extremely rare early Islamic gold coin on Thursday September 12, 2019, which is expected to fetch £1.4m at auction in London. Measuring a 20mm across, about the size of a modern £1 piece, it is one of the world's rarest and most treasured Islamic gold coins from the first dynasty of Islam, the Umayyad gold dinar dated 105h (723AD). (Photo by Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty Images)

A camel calf is seen among a herd in the desert near Dakhla in Morocco-administered Western Sahara, on October 13, 2019. In the Oued Eddahab desert in Western Sahara, Habiboullah Dlimi raises dairy and racing camels just like his ancestors used to, but with a little help from modern technology. While his animals roam free and are milked traditionally, by hand, at dawn and dusk, they are watched over by hired herders and Dlimi follows GPS coordinates across the desert in a 4X4 vehicle to reach them. (Photo by Fadel Senna/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”)

Competitors perform at the World Irish Dance Championship on April 13, 2014 in London, England. The 44th World Irish Dance Championship is currently running at London's Hilton London Metropole hotel, and will host approximately 5,000 dancers competing in solo, Ceili, modern figure choreography and dance drama categories during the week long event. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)