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Let's go home before the storm! The Lincolnshire coast is well known for its sandy beaches, and Mablethorpe and Sutton on Sea are outstanding, as this photograph shows.

The village is at the north end of a magnificent two-mile long sandy beach. Until the 1800s this stretch of coast was remote, its splendours familiar only to Ilfracombe fishermen.

Though the photographers' stalls were harmless enough, the beach by this date had acquired a reputation for cheap and tacky sideshows, gambling, brawling and drunkenness.

Frith may have been guilty of a little artistic licence in describing these women as 'cave dwellers' - there are indeed plenty of caves on the beach here, but all are sea-washed at high tide with even

The elegant brick railway station is at the far end, and the Grand Hotel is on the left. On the right is the Taliesin Hotel.

Church Cove is on the east side of the Lizard. The building on the left is the lifeboat station, erected in 1885; it is unusual that it is set at right angles to the beach.

The awnings are still up on the bandstand and the musicians are tuning up in readiness for the afternoon matinee. A colourful throng is being entertained by pierrots on the beach.

Between the High Street and the Beach village, where the fishing community lived, were 12 narrow alleys, known as Scores.

The eastern end of Hastings beach beside the RNLI lifeboat house is known as the 'Stade'- Saxon for 'landing place'; here the fleet of about 40 fishing boats are still winched up onto the shingle.

The awnings are still up on the bandstand and the musicians are tuning up in readiness for the afternoon matinee. A colourful throng is being entertained by pierrots on the beach.

Beyond the headland, the intrusion of industrial Cardiff into this view illustrates just how close the large docks were – albeit as the crow flies.

Old fishing boats, some decommissioned, are beached on the foreshore on the Lelant side of the estuary.

This view shows the fairground on Coney Beach.

'Quick Mum, get the ice cream whilst there's no queue!' The much loved and heavily patronised refreshment kiosk was an obligatory port of call for all families enjoying a day out at the beach.

This row of diminutive, white cottages provided accommodation for the Coastguards maintaining a watch along this busy stretch of the Kent coastline with its treacherous offshore sandbanks.

This shows a quiet day at Barry beach, with the only sign of life a rowing boat with its landing ramp.

This man and his best friend are sheltering from the sun on the north-facing side of this Victorian enclosure.

To the north beyond Ingoldmells, and rather more genteel, is Chapel St Leonards, where my mother used to holiday in the 1930s.

Large cargo ships standing off the mouth of the River Tees are still a familiar sight today.

In 1926, the Sands railway station closed and was converted to amusement arcades housing hundreds of slot machines; there was also a helter-skelter and a skating rink.

The tide is well and truly out in this picture, taken as the shadows lengthen on a summer evening in 1896.

A magician entertains a crowd of well dressed Victorian holidaymakers on the beach.

In the year King Edward VII cut a ribbon to launch London's first electric trams, this small town by the sea still used horses to pull its passenger-laden vehicles.

The Walls ice-cream delivery van (bottom left) is beside beach kiosks and a 1910-built shelter, to which a clock was added in 1953, to commemorate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.