A model presents a creation by LARHHA during the Code'41 Andalusian Fashion Week at the Amphitheatre of Italica in Seville on March 21, 2021. (Photo by Cristina Quicler/AFP Photo)

Models wear creations as part of the Dolce & Gabbana women's Spring Summer 2023 collection presented in Milan, Italy, Saturday, September 24, 2022. (Photo by Antonio Calanni/AP Photo)

Fire runners in devil costumes gather to enlighten their stick mounted firecrackers during the “Correfocs” at the “Fiesta Major” of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain on April 15, 2023. (Photo by Matthias Oesterle/Alamy Live News)

Long shadows are cast by players as Mitch Wallis of the Bulldogs passes the ball during the 2016 AFL Round 08 match between the Melbourne Demons and the Western Bulldogs at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne on May 15, 2016. (Photo by Scott Barbour/AFL Media/Getty Images)

A young fan plays a virtual reality game during the first round of the US Open tennis championships, Monday, August 29, 2022, in New York. (Photo by Julia Nikhinson/AP Photo)

A “caixer” (horse rider) rears up on his horse during the traditional “Jaleo” at the Sant Lluiset Festival in Sant Lluis, Spain on September 3, 2022. (Photo by Matthias Oesterle/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A model poses with “The Wellbeing Toilet” the winning entry from a Dyno-Rod Initiative to create a new design for the domestic toilet at Central Saint Martins on November 18, 2013 in London, England. The concept was commissioned to mark 50 years of Dyno-Rod and World Toilet Day on November 19th, 2013 The “Wellbeing Toilet” looks at the health and wellbeing aspect of getting rid of your bodily waste by being sculpted to enhance the position of your body by enabling you to squat rather than sit. (Photo by Miles Willis/Getty Images for Dyno-Rod)

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”)