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As an island nation, Britain is quick to celebrate its maritime history and heritage, but for most of us our relationship with the sea is through the seaside resort. We share more or less fond memories of building sand castles, splashing around in the sea and eating fish and chips, sometimes with a light sprinkle of sand as an accompaniment. However, the vast majority of holidaymakers will never have seen a seaside resort from the air, unless they have gone up in the balloon in the centre of Bournemouth or indulged in a pleasure flight over a resort such as Weston-super-Mare. This collection of aerial photographs, produced by Aerofilms Ltd mostly between 1920 and 1953, tells the story of England's seaside resorts as holiday destinations, but also as working towns, blessed with the sea as their backdrop. It also illustrates the type of entertainments available for holidaymakers and highlights how the seaside holiday at some resorts became big business with industrial-scale facilities and infrastructure.
This is the only guide to all 58 extant British seaside piers, including details of location, history and current operations, archive and contemporary photography and a gazetteer.
England has a long and involved relationship with the sea. It has provided a final line of defence against invasion, the route over which the country's global trade has travelled, the source of a bountiful harvest of fish and seafood that has sustained the population, the essential links in the empire that saw Britain emerge as the world's first 'Great Power', and, more recently, it has fostered the leisure industry. For many, the sea was to provide their final view of their homeland as emigration took them to far-flung corners of the world, while for others, perhaps fleeing religious or political persecution, the sea offered them a route to safety. 0For almost a century the photographers from the Aerofilms company recorded Britain from the air. Alongside the photographs taken of the great castles and abbeys of the country, the views als recorded industrial and commercial activity - including the docks and ports that were an essential part in maintaining Britain's place in the world. 0In this book, Peter Waller has delved through the collection of Aerofilms photographs held by Historic England to explore the country's maritime heritage. Selecting 150 images, the author looks at how the docks and ports have evolved since the years immediately after World War I, how traditional patterns of trade have changed, how the Royal Navy has shrunk and how the leisure industry has come to dominate --
Two centuries ago Weston-super-Mare was a small, rarely visited village but its location alongside the Severn Estuary soon made it a convenient bathing place for the wealthy inhabitants of Bristol and Bath. Once the railway arrived in 1841, the handful of brave sea bathers became thousands of day trippers in search of fun and sunshine. Weston also became popular with excursionists and holidaymakers arriving by steamer from South Wales. To cater for all these visitors, the small entertainment and bathing facilities enjoyed by the wealthy Georgian elite were replaced by larger, more popular facilities, including two piers, Winter Gardens, a large swimming bath and a substantial open-air pool. Weston is not only a busy seaside resort, but a popular place to live. During the 19th century its population rose from around 100 to almost 20,000 and its handful of small, fisherman’s cottages became a sea of terraces, crescents and villas constructed using the local stone. A distinctive type of villa emerged in Weston, different from those found at either of its larger neighbours. This was in large part due to Hans Fowler Price, the town’s leading architect for more than half a century from 1860 until his death in 1912. The book celebrates the complex history and colourful heritage of the town. It also looks to the future to examine how its 200-year story might contribute to a prosperous future.
The seafront is ever changing, depending on the time of day, the state of the tides, and the month of the year. At once natural and artificial, it is a place to live, work, and play, a site for commemoration, experimentation, and relaxation. The Seafront examines how this highly complex space has been created, re-created, and adapted over the past three hundred years. It tells the story of seaside holidays and how the arrival of increasing numbers of tourists transformed natural coastline into the manmade environments of modern resorts, and describes along the way the engineering of sea defences, the facilities designed for sea bathing, and the fun factories and fun fairs of the twentieth century. Glitteringly illustrated throughout, the book celebrates the many and diverse aspects of the seafront's history, geography, character, function, and meaning.
The seaside holiday and the seaside resort are two of England's greatest exports to the world. Since the early 18th century, when some of the wealthiest people first sought improved health by bathing in saltwater, the lure of the sea has been a fundamental part of the British way of life, and millions of people still head to the coast each year. Margate has an important place in the story of seaside holidays. It vies with Scarborough, Whitby and Brighton for the title of England's first seaside resort, and it was the first to offer sea-water baths to visitors. Margate can also claim other firsts, including the first Georgian square built at a seaside resort (Cecil Square), the first substantial seaside development outside the footprint of an historic coastal town, the site of the world's first sea-bathing hospital, and, as a result of its location along the Thames from London, the first popular resort frequented by middle- and lower-middle-class holidaymakers. It is unlikely that Margate will ever attract the vast numbers of visitors that flocked there in the 19th and early 20th centuries. However, with growing concerns about the environmental effects of air travel and a continuing awareness of the threat of excessive exposure to the sun, the English seaside holiday may enjoy some form of revival. If Margate finds ways to renew itself while retaining its historic identity, it may once again become a vibrant destination for holidays, as well as being an attractive place for people to live and work.
For almost a century, from its inception in the years immediately after World War I, the Aerofilms company recorded the changing face of England from the air. At the start of the era, the railway was still the predominant form of transport, with a network of main, secondary and branch lines that stretched to virtually every corner of the realm. As the 20th century progressed, however, this dominance declined as the private motorcar and the lorry increasingly became the preferred mode of transport. The early railway builders - such as the London & Birmingham - had invested much in creating impressive stations for this new and revolutionary form of transport and, during the 19th century, many of the country's leading architects undertook commissions on behalf of the burgeoning railway industry. After World War II, however, many of these buildings were were swept away. 0The Aerofilms collection provides a unique vantage point to explore the country's railway heritage. It is only from the air that it is possible to appreciate fully how much the railway came to dominate the landscape; even in relatively small country towns, the railway station with its platforms and goods yard was significant. Add to this the construction of tunnels and viaducts, and the railway can be said to have shaped much of the landscape of modern England --
Of all the architectural delights of British seaside resorts, the most astonishing and idiosyncratic is the seaside pier. Remarkable visual spectacles, piers are architecturally extraordinary in concept and at times outrageous in execution. They brought together the Victorian genius for technological and material innovation, architectural ambition and engineering ingenuity in the search for new designs for leisure (as well as profit) over the sea. This superbly illustrated book explores the history of the design processes leading to the architectural and engineering innovations that have allowed people to walk on water in such diverse and delightful ways. Coverage includes the development of piers into the crowning architectural glory of British seaside resorts; the key people, materials, inventions and technologies in the field, particularly the work of Eugenius Birch, the greatest pier designer; the remarkable diversity of piers ranging from the earliest simple landing stages, through staid promenade piers and the glories of fully-fledged pleasure piers, to the boisterous joys of funfair and amusement piers; the rich variety of architectural styles, including exotic 'Orientalism' and streamlined Modernism and, finally, today's contemporary prospects for renewal and reinvention.
The arrival of aerial photography came at a particularly significant moment in terms of the visual appearance of England. This selection of photographs makes use of the Aerofilms collection, acquired by English Heritage in 2007. When Aerofilms fliers first went up in the skies in 1919, they captured a country that had more or less been preserved in aspic in 1914. What we are looking at in many of the earliest photographs in this book is essentially Edwardian England, with towns and villages generally quite compact, with fields reaching almost up to the High Streets in many cases, and little sign of the sprawl that was to engulf them in the 1920s and 30s. This fantastically illustrated book shows just how radically that position changed over the ensuing half century. We trace the outward expansion of places brought about by the availability of the car: the new suburbs and ribbon development. We see how new arterial roads came into being to meet the needs of motor transport and how the centre of cities start to be rebuilt to accommodate it. We witness the growth of sprawl around road junctions on the edge of built-up areas and the arrival of new types of building there to service both cars and people: the filling station, the roadhouse. We see how the car encouraged more people to go further afield for sport and pleasure: to the seaside, the races or to new forms of attractions such as the amusement park in the country. And we see how public transport changes over the period from trams to buses with the advent of new facilities such as bus stations. The scale of traffic congestion becomes apparent by the late 1930s. In addition, the impact on the landscape of large motor factories and provision for motor sport is made clear.
Blackpool is Britain's favourite seaside resort. Each year millions of visitors come to walk on its three piers, ride donkeys, enjoy shows at the Winter Gardens, scream on the thrilling rides at the Pleasure Beach and ride the lift to the top of the Tower. Generations of holidaymakers have stayed in its hotels, lodging houses and bed and breakfasts and all have succumbed to its delectable fish and chips. Two centuries of tourism has left behind a rich heritage, but Blackpool has also inherited a legacy of social and economic problems, as well as the need for comprehensive new sea defences to protect the heart of the town. In recent years this has led to the transformation of its seafront and to regeneration programmes to try to improve the town, for its visitors and residents. This book celebrates Blackpool's rich heritage and examines how its colourful past is playing a key part in guaranteeing that it has a bright future.