Vulgar to look at the sea...? from The Open Air (1885) by Richard Jefferies, English nature writer, comes this interesting titbit...

"It is a Piccadilly crowd by the sea – exactly the same style of people you meet in Piccadilly, but freer in dress, and particularly in hats.

All fashionable Brighton parades the King's Road twice a day, morning and afternoon, always on the side of the shops. The route is up and down the King's Road as far as Preston Street, back again and up East Street.

Riding and driving Brighton extends its Rotten Row sometime to Third Avenue, Hove. These well-dressed and leading people never look at the sea. Watching by the gold-plate shop you will observe a single glance in the direction of the sea, beautiful as it is, gleaming under the sunlight.

They do not take the slightest interest in sea, or sun , or sky, or the fresh breeze calling white horses from the deep. Their pursuits are purely 'social', and neither ladies nor gentlemen ever go on the beach or lie where the surge comes to the feet.

The beach is ignored; it is almost, perhaps quite vulgar; or rather it is entirely outside the pale.

No one rows, very few sail; the sea is not 'the thing' in Brighton, which is the least nautical of seaside places.

There is more talk of horses."