This detailed academic cultural study looks at the rise and fall of the seaside holiday in Britain. John K. Walton offers a broad interpretation of the holidays and resorts, looking at who went, where they went, what they did, and how they were entertained.

All stretches of the coastline, and all sizes of resorts, are featured in this title, and have been studied to explain what gives England's seaside towns their special character.

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.

Long before the Victorians the Georgian elite made the English seaside their playground Discover the invention of the English seaside holiday in the days when royalty was ruthlessly dunked beneath the waves, when lodging houses catered for dukes and where resort visitors ranged from dying consumptives to marriageable misses to scandalous rakes - and the Prince Regent at his most outrageous. From the origins of sea bathing in the 16th century to the pinnacle of sophisticated Assembly Rooms, hotels and bathing establishments, this book charts the rise of the English seaside resorts before the arrival of the railways in the 1840s heralded the arrival of mass tourism and changed the way the English took their holidays for ever. Long before the Victorians every English county with a coastline had its resort with piers, sandcastles on the beach, donkey rides, sea bathing, souvenirs and the seaside landlady - this is the story of how, and why, they grew.

Resorts and Ports draws together a group of case-studies which for the first time explore the changing relationships between port and resort activities in a cross-section of European maritime settings over three centuries. The book will interest academics in tourism studies, history, geography and cultural studies, as well as providing essential information and analysis for policy makers in coastal regeneration.

Histories of seaports and coastal resorts have usually been kept in separate compartments. This book brings them together and looks at how resort development affected historic ports during the rise and development of the seaside holiday in Europe from the 18th century to the 20th, and what the attributes of ports (fishing, harbour crafts, the whiff of the exotic, fishermen’s homes and families) contributed to the attractions of resorts. Case-studies drawn from across Europe, from Wales and the Netherlands to Norway, Latvia and Spain, bring original perspectives to bear on these histories and relationships, and consider their influence on seaside heritage and regeneration at a time when coastal settlements are increasingly using their past to secure their future. The book will interest academics in tourism studies, history, geography and cultural studies, as well as provide essential information and analysis for policy-makers in coastal regeneration.

A revised edition of the classic book that launched Martin Parr and transformed the world of documentary photography.

Drawing on examples from a range of economies and environments, this text develops a global perspective on the management issues facing coastal resorts. The main management themes highlighted include the processes of restructuring, and attempts to develop sustainable agendas.

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.