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”)

Actress Oh In-Hae and director Ahn Sang-Su arrives for the opening ceremony of the 16th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) during the press conference at the Busan Cinema Center on October 6, 2011 in Busan, South Korea. The biggest film festival in Asia showcases 307 films from 70 countries and runs from October 6-14. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

Russian soldiers rehearse ahead of a forthcoming parade on Red Square in Moscow on November 5, 2017 The event will take place on November 7, marking the 76 th anniversary of a 1941 parade, when Red Army soldiers marched past the Kremlin walls towards the front line to fight Nazi Germany troops during World War Two. (Photo by Mladen Antonov/AFP Photo)

Antonina Yermokhina, 86, does physical exercises during her daily training session on the embankment of the Yenisei River in the Siberian town of Divnogorsk, Russia November 13, 2017. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

In this July 9, 2016 file photo, girls jump from a diving platform into the Geneva Lake and enjoy sunny and warm weather, in Villeneuve, Switzerland. After nearly 90 years, women can legally swim topless in Geneva’s lake and Rhone River without running the risk of a fine. Geneva’s regional council has voted to modify a 1929 ordinance that banned women from swimming topless in the city’s main natural waterways, though the change doesn’t apply to public swimming pools or swimming totally naked. Nicolas Bolle, an official with Geneva’s security department, on Thursday, April 6, 2017 confirmed the council’s action a day earlier. (Photo by Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP Photo)

A Muslim man carries holy incensed smoke through a pedestrian subway in Mumbai, India, May 13, 2016. (Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)

A wild leopard runs on the stairs as it tries to escape from a compound of a house in Kathmandu, Nepal June 1, 2016. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

A Hindu devotee performs a stunt with fire during a rehearsal for the annual Rath Yatra, or chariot procession, which commemorates a journey by Hindu god Jagannath, his brother Balabhadra and sister Subhadra, in specially made chariots, in Ahmedabad, India, June 26, 2016. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)