existed not only in Australia but also on the beaches of England, France and Italy and Cape Town at around the same time. They had evolved from the wheeled bathing machines used by Victorians to preserve their modesty. George III gave royal approval to the new fashion when he took a medicinal bath at Weymouth to the musical accompaniment of ‘God Save the King.’, while Queen Victoria installed one at Osbourne House on the Isle of Wight in the 1840s. Felixstowe in Suffolk is believed to have had beach huts from at least 1891. In the early 20th century, beach huts were regarded as "holiday homes for the toiling classes", but in the 1930s their image revived, George V and Queen Mary spent the day at a beach hut in Sussex, and other owners have included the Spencer family and Laurence Olivier. During World War II all UK beaches were closed, the reopening in the late 1940s and 1950s led to resurgence of the British beach holiday and the heyday of the Beach Hut. While many beach huts were former fishermen's huts, boat-sheds or converted bathing machines, some of the earliest purpose built beach huts in the UK were erected at Bournemouth, either side of Bournemouth Pier in 1909. Designed by F. P. Dolamore, Bournemouth's Borough Engineer, they were offered for hire for £12 10s per year. 160 huts, or bungalows as they were styled, were initially built before the World War I. Today, Bournemouth features around 520 huts owned by the Council; there are in addition a further 1200 privately owned huts. They vary in style from the traditional, wooden, shed-like constructions to the ultra modern, concrete terrace style huts such as the 1950s Overstrand beach huts at Boscombe. These were renovated to designs by Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway, founders of the Red or Dead label, as Beach Pods for the Surf Reef opened in Autumn 2009. Notable huts The Queen's beach hut in Norfolk was destroyed by fire in 2003. The building had been owned by the Royal Family for 70 years and was known to be much loved by the Queen. More recently the artist, Tracey Emin, sold her Whitstable beach hut to the collector, Charles Saatchi, for £75,000. This hut was also destroyed by fire when the warehouse where it was stored burnt down. In April 2011 Bournemouth Council obtained planning permission to site a beach