A South African police officer speaks to residents of the densely populated Alexandra township east of Johannesburg Friday, March 27, 2020. (Photo by Jerome Delay/AP Photo)

Customers play with cats to find comfort at the Caturday Cat cafe after the government started opening some restaurants outside shopping malls, parks and barbershops, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Bangkok, Thailand on May 7, 2020. (Photo by Juarawee Kittisilpa/Reuters)

Afghan bodybuilders compete in the Mr. Afghanistan bodybuilding competition in Kabul on July 10, 2024. (Photo by Wakil Kohsar/AFP Photo)

Inflatable pools were set up by volunteer youth to cool children living in tents in Khan Yunis city of Gaza under Israeli attacks, on July 18, 2024. (Photo by Hassan Jedi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

A Mark IV tank, part of the parade at the Lord Mayor's Show in London. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images). November 1917

A dramatic sunset acts as a backdrop to Stonehenge on November 20, 2008 in Stonehenge, England. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

A Siberian tiger at a photographer for getting too much in its face during the presentation of two new Siberian tigers at Cabarceno Natural Reserve in Cabarceno, northern Spain, 21 July 2014. (Photo by Pedro Puente Hoyos/EPA)

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”)