American singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo is red hot backstage at her show in Argentina in the last decade of March 2025. (Photo by oliviarodrigo/Instagram)

American television personality Paige Desorbo on June 26, 2025 channels her inner disco ball in a glittery snap. (Photo by paigedesorbo/Instagram)

A visitor views “Giant Pumpkin, no1” by British artist Anthea Hamilton during the Frieze Art Fair in Regents Park in London on October 12, 2022. The fair is open to the public 14–18 October. (Photo by Guy Bell/Alamy Live News)

English actress Florence Pugh poses for photographers upon arrival at the 76th British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA's, in London, Sunday, February 19, 2023. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP Photo)

Maya Jama reaches for the skies in a rainbow swimming costume. Presenter Maya posed in the sun during a getaway trip to Ibiza on August 19, 2025. (Photo by Instagram)

English media personality and model Katie Price during a photoshoot in Ibiza for upcoming calendar, on Thursday, April 11, 2019. (Photo by GTres/Splash News and Pictures)

United States Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Jason Itro yells at recruit Nancy Carbins January 15, 2003 after she grabbed another recruit in the pool in an attempt to stay afloat during swim training at the Combat Pool on Parris Island, SC. Under the watchful eyes of swim instructors, recruits are required to swim in full gear and learn limited strokes and breathing to stay afloat. Carbins broke a major rule by grabbing another recruit and submerging them both. (Photo by Stephen Morton/Getty Images)

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”)