People look at smoke and flame rising from the Nevskaya Manufaktura textile factory founded by English merchant J. Thornton in 1841, in St. Petersburg, Russia, Monday, April 12, 2021. The emergencies ministry said the fire had broken out over several floors of the red-brick Nevskaya Manufaktura building on the Oktyabrskaya Embankment of the Neva River. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

A colorful drawing is seen on a wall in Baghdad, Iraq on October 24, 2021. A group of volunteer painters tries to give hope and joy to the Iraqi residents by painting colorful murals on the walls of the houses and streets of the city, tired of violance. Seve-member group named “Butterfly Effect” is busy in drawing paintings to depict life in Baghdad and its cultural heritage on the buildings (Photo by Murtadha Al-Sudani/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Riot police help an injured anti-government protester after scuffles broke out with women police officers on a road leading to the parliament building, during a protest in Beirut on November 19, 2019. Thousands of protesters rallying against the Lebanese political elite blocked roads in central Beirut on Tuesday, preventing lawmakers from reaching the parliament and forcing the postponement of a legislative session. (Photo by Bilal Hussein/AP Photo)

Two men cross the street in front of a burned-out bus standing beneath a residential building, in the district Neukoelln in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, January 3, 2023. People across Germany on Saturday resumed their tradition of setting off large numbers of fireworks in public places to see in the new year. The bus was set on fire during the New Year's celebrations. (Photo by Markus Schreiber/AP Photo)

Edinburgh mask maker Lorraine Pritchard on Sunday, January 28, 2024 alongside some of her Venetian masks which will be worn and displayed at the Venice Carnival, which starts on Saturday February 3. Lorraine studied model making at Glasgow College of Building and Printing and Venetian mask making in Florence, Italy. She travels to Venice each year to be a “mask” herself, wearing different masks she has designed as a live exhibit of her work. (Photo by Jane Barlow/PA Images via Getty Images)

A 22-year-old woman in a wedding gown is grabbed by Guo Zhongfan, a local community officer, as she attempts to kill herself by jumping out of a seven-storey residential building in Changchun, Jilin province. According to local media, the woman tried to commit suicide after her boyfriend of four years broke up with her, just as they were making plans to get married. The woman did not sustain any injuries during the incident. (Photo by China Daily/Reuters)

Palestinians hit injured Israeli settlers, center, detained by Palestinian villagers in a building under construction near the West Bank village of Qusra, southeast of the city of Nablus, Tuesday, January 7, 2014. Palestinians held more than a dozen Israeli settlers for about two hours Tuesday in retaliation for the latest in a string of settler attacks on villages in the area, witnesses said. The military said the chain of events apparently began after Israeli authorities removed an illegally built structure in Esh Kodesh, a rogue Israeli settlement in the area. In recent years, militant settlers have often responded to any attempts by the Israeli military to remove parts of dozens of rogue settlements, or outposts, by attacking Palestinians and their property. The tactic, begun in 2008, is known as “price tag”. (Photo by Nasser Ishtayeh/AP 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”)