‘Up to about forty or fifty years ago travelling was a solemn act, not to be enterprised nor taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly,’ so writes the Belfast News-Letter in September 1888. But all of this had changed; from the inception of the railways ‘day excursions’ had become ‘entirely modern pleasures,’ the British seaside and countryside opened up to visitors who could travel there easily by train. This was the railway revolution, which opened up the seaside to ordinary, working class people. …
Seaside history
This August at The Archive we will be taking a look at the history of the Great British seaside, from bathing machines to bathing costumes, and today in this special blog we will explore one of the seaside’s most familiar sites: the beach hut. The Sphere | 30 November 1957 Using our newspapers, we will take a look at how the beach hut became popular, and how in the 1920s and 1930s newspaper columns brimmed with advice on how to furnish …