The cheery optimism (and roof in a rainstorm) of the British coast’s “nostalgia pods”.

“There is nothing, quite possibly, more British than the seaside shelter,” writes architecture and design critic Mr Edwin Heathcote in Seaside Shelters, a new book by photographer Mr Will Scott exploring the simple, unassuming coastal structures that have nurtured generations of sun-seeking Brits. Describing the shelters in Mr Scott’s photographs as “nostalgia pods”, Mr Heathcote expertly summarises what makes them part of the tapestry of British culture. As an architectural photographer who has worked on this project since 2016, Mr Scott focuses on a subject which is mundane, thrusting shelters into the spotlight and forcing us to view them as innovative and beautiful objects. In doing so, Mr Scott chronicles the historic rise and fall of the British seaside resort.

Spanning from Yorkshire to Eastbourne and Somerset to Devon, the photographs capture the spirit of each quintessential seaside town. A modernist, white, Art Deco structure on the shores of Deal in Kent looks like it has landed straight from the USS Enterprise, incongruent with its traditional surroundings, while a lonely structure in Frinton-On-Sea is an elegant example of old Victorian design (complete with personal clock tower). The juxtaposing designs of all the shelters featured in the book depict the competition to attract holiday-goers at a time when British summer holidays were highly popularised.

Some of the shelters feature brightly painted exteriors, such as the sunny yellow of a bench in Southsea and the baby blue of fairground shelter in Skegness. Perhaps the colours were chosen as an attempt to cheer-up holiday-makers as they ran for cover from a British summer’s day doomed by rainfall.

The majority of the images are imperfect representations of the British coast, featuring paint flaking from discarded bus shelters in Margate, beach huts cowering under wild trees, sand dunes in Dorset and forlorn shelters overlooked by threatening grey skies. As Mr Heathcote writes, the photography highlights the shelters as an “epic act of resistance – against time, weather, decline and changing architectural fashions”. Perhaps Mr Scott’s photography is so intriguing not only because it evokes a past era of innocence, but because his subject matter resembles a British attitude: resilient, stubborn and a little bit rough around the edges.

[**Seaside Shelters exhibition is at Heni Gallery in London from 20 July to 19 August 2018

Seaside Shelters (Heni Publishing) by Mr Will Scott is out 19 July**](http://henipublishing.com/product/seaside-shelters/)