Late Victorian pleasure piers Vs inter-war lidos

As I showed in my post on late 19th century amusement centres, sporting activity, fun and healthy living were de rigeur amongst those families with some leisure time on their hands.

Brighton Pier 

1899

iknow Sussex made my point about Victorian and Edwardian seaside architecture. Hastings Pier was the creation of seaside architect Eugenius Birch who modelled the Hastings design on Brighton's West Pier (since lost). Hastings Pier first opened in 1872 and until 2010 was a hub for craft shops and amusements. At Eastbourne, Birch's glorious pier (1872) still stands in good condition. Eastbourne Pier stretches 1000’ out to sea and with its wide promenade proved perfect strolling ground for the upper classes arriving at Eastbourne and the Devonshire Hotels through the Victorian and Edwardian era.

Once the railway from London reached Southend, there was a great influx of summer time visitors. The large number of people must have made a bit of a mess of the existing wooden pier and in 1873, it was sold to the local council. Soon the Southend council decided to replace the pier with a new iron structure which was completed in 1889 at great expense.

Saltdean Lido, 1937, 
with curved cafe in the centre

Brighton's Palace Pier, when it was opened in 1899, represented the finest architectural example of late Victorian seaside architecture. The Palace Pier was and is a centre for entertainment and for strolling by holiday visitors. [This was unlike its predecessor, the Chain Pier, with its function as docking site]. The late 19th century was a golden age of seaside resort architecture and entertainment centres, so the Palace Pier was appropriately ornate and eccentric in its architectural style, with creative use of cast-iron snakes on lamp posts. By 1911 the pier had its own theatre, and ever since then, additions and modernisations have occurred.

Something happened in the inter-war period! The popularity of water sports encouraged many seaside resort councils to invest heavily in entertainment areas, to cater for the dramatic increase in the numbers of holiday makers. But now families wanted something different. As Douglas d'Enno wrote, it became as essential to have a lido as it had been to have a pier, forty years before. A lido was a public outdoor swimming pool and ALL the surrounding facilities needed for swimming, sunbaking and water sports. Perhaps the timing of the lidos was due to the introduction of mixed bathing in the more relaxed inter-war period.

By the late 1930s, lidos had opened in Prestatyn (1922), Blackpool (1923), Plymouth (1928), Exmouth (1929), Skegness (1932), Hastings and St Leonards (1933), New Brighton and Wallasey (1934), Brighton (1935), Penzance (1935), Morecambe (1936) and Weston-super-Mare (1938). Bournemouth had indoor AND outdoor pools.

New Anzac musings blog wrote that a gem of a Lido Land lies on the South Coast Road at Saltdean near Brighton. It was designed by RWH Jones in 1937, in the Art Deco style, and opened the following year. Time-wise, location-wise and style-wise, the Lido owed a debt to the De La Warre Pavilion at nearby Bexhill-On-Sea, which itself had only opened in Dec 1935. The clever use of curved steel and glass created a feeling of space and movement. As in most 1930s lido designs, the buildings were meant to remind the viewer of an ocean cruiser’s stylish lines. The Lido had a café in the central block, changing rooms on the ground floor and sun terraces above these, which the Art Deco Blog showed beautifully.

Brockwell Lido London, 
1937

You will remember from my post on The Bexhill Pavilion that Bexhill provided sun baking on the deck, fabulous afternoon teas in the coffee shop and art work in the gallery. The Lido in Saltdean, renovated in 1998, provided sun baking on the deck, fabulous afternoon teas in the coffee shop and swimming in the Lido pool.

Tired of London, Tired of Life discussed Parliament Hill Lido, opened in 1938 in Hampstead Heath. If the entrance of Parliament Hill Lido reminds you of Brockwell Lido, apparently the initial design intentionally replicated that of Victoria Park Lido 1936 (later demolished) and Brockwell Park Lido 1937 (later removed and expanded). Art Deco Buildings has a tragic list of those lidos that were eventually doomed.