Historic Brighton

The Royal Pavilion has to be the main tourist attraction in Brighton, and bids fair to be one of the best in Britain. Yes, it is quite small, but it is madly opulent. You have to see it to believe it.

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The Pavilion is running Living History days on the first Sunday of each month this spring. There will be plenty of activities for all the family. Hopefully the idea will be a success and will be extended into the summer, or at least repeated in later years.

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Everything in this journal except the hotel is within walking distance of central Brighton. Brighton & Hove buses now offer a £1 flat rate fare to just about anywhere, even as far as Shoreham. Daily and weekly saver tickets are available.

Once again I stayed with my good friends at the Adastral Hotel. See my "Brighton by Fairy Lights" journal for general details.

As this is an historical journal I decided to ask Tony about the history of the place. The building is Victorian, dating from around 1865 when it was a family home. However, like much of Brighton''s wonderful housing, it became too expensive for ordinary families and was converted into flats. During WWII parts of the building were used to billet Canadian soldiers.

After the war the building was purchased by Group Captain Miles, ex of the RAF, who turned it into a guesthouse and named it Adastral after the Air Force HQ in London, Adastral House. The business changed hands several times. One set of owners was a French couple, the husband of which used to serenade diners as he served their meals.

Tony and Val bought the building in 1987 and set about turning it from a guesthouse into a serious business. In 1992 they purchased the adjoining #7 for further expansion. The four rooms that they started with have now become 20. Refurbishment continues, and the accompanying photos show some of the most recently renovated rooms.

I''m sorry to say that I cannot report anyone famous having stayed at the hotel (except me, of course). Tony says that various senior Labour Party bureaucrats have stayed there during party conferences, which are often held in Brighton, but it seems like the rich and famous of this world are missing out on a fine hotel.

The Ferkin Brewery has made a habit of converting interesting buildings into pubs. In Brighton they have excelled themselves, producing the fabulous Font & Ferkin from an old church. Yes, you heard correctly, a church. The bar is where the altar used to be, and you can settle down over your pint in a nice comfortable pew. Thankfully they have not left the pews in serried rows, but have arranged them tastefully around tables. If you want to worship at the shrine of Real Ale, this is a good place to do it.

The pub also serves food and it got into this journal because I went there for a business lunch. It was pretty good. I paid rather more for my burger than I would have done at that place with the golden arches, but it was a much better burger. One point very much in the pub's favour is that it gave the option of wedges rather than fries with the meal.

I am told that the pub gets very crowded of a Friday and Saturday night, or any time they are showing a football game on TV, but for lunch and a pint if you are out shopping in The Lanes it is a very good bet. It is unlikely that you will have been in any other pub quite like this one.

Brighton's first encounter with major historical events, not to mention dandified royalty, was very brief. King Charles II had been defeated in battle by the Parliamentary army at Worcester. Every British schoolchild knows the story of how the King managed to escape pursuit by hiding in an oak tree, but often the story stops there. In fact Charles and his friend, Lord Wilmot, decided to head for France and made their way to Brighton where they stayed at the George Inn. They made the acquaintance of one Nicholas Tettersell, master of The Surprise, who agreed to take them to France for a fee £200.

Years later, after the British had realised that even republicanism wasn't worth being ruled by religious fanatics who banned dancing and Charles had been restored to the throne, Tettersell was rewarded for his service. He was granted a sizeable pension and made a captain in the Royal Navy. After his retirement he purchased the Ship Inn at the bottom of what is now Ship Street in Brighton. Although completely rebuilt in later times, the Old Ship Hotel, as the building is now called, is still there on the same site.

The mate of The Surprise, one Thomas (or Dick, sources vary) Carver, was a Quaker. Although they were pacifists, the Quakers did not escape the persecution of non-conformist religious groups that followed the Restoration. Many were imprisoned or executed. Carver decided to visit the King and beg for help. After some (apparently good-natured) bargaining concerning the value of a Royal life, Charles agreed to halt the persecutions and almost 500 people were released from prison. Among them was a Mr. John Bunyan who later went on to write Britain's most famous religious parable, Pilgrim's Progress.

Whereas the exterior of the Pavilion is firmly in a faux Moghul style, the interior is most definitely faux Chinese. The contrast is startling, as is the opulence of the furnishings. I have seen quite a few stately homes in Britain, but nothing quite takes the breath away like the Pavilion. I would certainly never decorate my own home like that, but the sheer craftsmanship of it all is awesome.

The most impressive area is the Banqueting Room, designed by Robert Jones. Its centrepiece is a massive chandelier hanging from a domed ceiling with a magnificent dragon curled around the suspending wires. William IV had it taken down because one of Queen Adelaide's companions dreamed that it would fall during a banquet, but Queen Victoria had it restored because Prince Albert liked it.

Even more sumptuous is the Music Room, actually a small ballroom. This is the work of the famous interior designer, Frederick Crace. Its red and gold colour scheme make it seem more like something out of a fabulously exotic brothel than a royal ballroom. Then again, given the painting by Whistler of Prince George "awakening the spirit of Brighton" that hangs in the upper floor of the Pavilion, perhaps this is what was intended.

My favourite room is the kitchen. For those of us who love to cook, this is a room to die for. It has more floor area than most houses I have lived in. It is a place for serious banqueting, and indeed on display is a menu for one of Prince George's entertainments which comprises a mere 36 courses. There is plenty of room to work, there are huge ovens, and there is an open fire with enough spit space to roast half a dozen chickens and a couple of piglets simultaneously.

Vegetarian visitors are warned that the kitchen in set out with displays of likely consumables including a sizeable collection of taxidermy. The centrepiece is a cooking vessel containing a whole swan. This, of course, is to remind us that in Britain the eating of swans is still a royal prerogative. Having lived in the rebellious colony of Australia I have actually tasted the bird and can report that it isn't that special, but it sure looks impressive in the pot.

Something else I noticed, particularly in the upper rooms, is the depth and brightness of the colours used in the decoration. This is particularly the case in the Yellow Bow Rooms where the colour is so intense and pure that it looks computer-generated. Apparently this type of intense colour was a new invention in the early 19th Century.

Sadly no photography is allowed inside the building, but you can see some tempting views of the interior on the Brighton council web site. As is traditional with such places, the exit takes you out through a gift shop in which you can buy various memorabilia, including books on Regency fashions and dancing.

Brighton is not a major fishing port these days as it lacks the sort of quality harbour required by modern trawlers. However, in past times all a fisherman needed was a beach on which he could pull up his boat and sell his catch.

Unfortunately for the fishermen of Brighton, the arrival of the Prince Regent and his entourage resulted in their being gradually evicted from the beach in favour of more socially acceptable activities such as bathing and tourist shops. When, in the 1860s, the council built the great sea wall we see today, the fisherman were allocated only three of the arches from which to ply their trade.

Their presence came under continued pressure and when, in 1992, the council was again looking to improve the appearance of the sea front the fisherman appealed to local Labour politician, Andy Durr, for help. This was a smart move, because Mr. Durr was not only an able politician (he is currently Mayor of Brighton and Hove) but also a lecturer in history at the University of Brighton. With Durr's help, one of the fishermen's arches was converted to a museum devoted to preserving the memory of a vanishing profession.

The Brighton Fishing Museum is not large, and unless you have a passion for clinker built boats it has little in the way of big displays. However, museums are not just there for the flash stuff. They also exist to tell us about the lives of people in past times, and from that point of view the fishing museum does a fine job.

Much of the museum is given over to prints and photographs of Brighton's sea front and the activities that took place there. Just as Brighton has been a magnet for famous writers, so too many of Britain's greatest artists have visited. A small museum such as this cannot afford major works of art, but it does boast prints of works by such luminaries as Constable and Turner, all featuring Brighton seaside scenes.

You can have a museum for anything these days, and perhaps that is just as well or some wonderful things would be forever lost. On the sea front at Brighton I found a small museum specialising in penny slot machines. Some of them I recognised from when I was a kid, but many of them were much older.

For example, the museum has a couple of examples of the hand-cranked pornographic movie machines generally known as, "What the Butler saw". These being seaside machines, the pictures are of a young lady getting ready to bathe rather than getting ready for bed, but otherwise the idea is the same.

In a completely different vein, there is a pinball table dating from 1933. It is so old that it really does have pins on it, just like the old bagatelle boards from which pinball was derived. There are also fortune telling machines, and a very primitive table ice hockey game.

One rare item is a Victory V Allwins machine. An Allwins is a type of slot machine in which the player shoots a ball upwards and watches it fall past a collection of cups. If it falls into a cup early on it wins a prize, but if it falls to the bottom it loses. This particular machine was made during WWII. The winning cups are arranged in Churchill's famous V and are labelled with the flags of the Allies. The losing cup is decorated with German and Japanese flags.

Most of the machine still work and you can play them. The trouble is that you need old-fashioned pennies. You can buy them at the museum, but the exchange rate isn't too good. I'm sure that when I was in school 50p converted to rather more than 7d. Still, who cares as long as it keeps this lovely little museum in business?

If all this history is giving you a taste for some long-lost style you have to remember to pop into Past Times in North Street. This successful chain of British shops has made a business out of replica historic artefacts. Foreign visitors will doubtless have seen their outlets and Heathrow and Gatwick airports even if they have not come across a town-based store.

Past Times deals with all periods of British history, from Celtic times right through to the Swinging Sixties of the Beatles and Mary Quant. Visitors to Brighton will probably be most interested in their range of 18th Century goods, primarily jewellery and household decorations. If visiting the Pavilion has given you the taste for something exquisite, Past Times may just be able to help.

Of course you don't have to go to Brighton to shop. Past Times is a successful chain and much of their catalogue is available online. You can even pay in US$.

Brighton shot to fame in Britain in the latter half of the 18th Century. Bathing in the sea had started to become popular earlier, but the publication of a book (in Latin) by Dr. Richard Russell of Lewes brought the idea to the attention of London Society. Russell proposed both bathing in and drinking seawater as a cure for vast numbers of ills, primarily diseases of the glands. He moved to Brighton, buying a house on the site of what is now the Royal Albion Hotel, and soon had a string of prestigious clients.

Russell died in 1759, but his house was then rented by the Duke of Cumberland, George III's younger brother, who had taken a fancy to Brighton. Dr. Samuel Johnson came to bathe in 1776, and in 1783 when the Prince of Wales (later George IV) expressed his delight in the practice the future of the resort was assured.

There were two ways in which one could take the waters. Firstly there were bathhouses down near the shore that pumped water out of the sea allowing a bath to be taken in relative comfort. For the more adventurous there were bathing machines: small covered wagons that could be pulled out into the sea. Bathers could change into suitably modest bathing clothes in the wagon and then walk down some steps into the water.

Of course it was necessary to have a servant to help one bathe, and a profession of "Dippers" grew up in the area. The most famous of these were Martha Gunn and John "Smoaker" Miles. Both of them were favoured by the Prince of Wales. Miles even had his portrait painted, and it can still be seen hanging in the Royal Pavilion.

Having taken a liking to bathing and the riotous social life of 18th Century Brighton, the Prince of Wales decided that he needed a home on the south coast. Young George acquired a farmhouse from a local magnate, Thomas Kemp, and, as soon as his gambling debts allowed, he set about converting it into something suitably grand.

The architect, Henry Holland, created the neo-classical Marine Palace comprising a central domed rotunda with two wings. Aside from the dome, the building was very much in the classic, restrained style of Georgian architecture. It was a job well done, and it might still be there now had not Prince George decided that he needed some stables.

The architect for the stables, William Porden, was an altogether more ambitious fellow. He set about constructing a huge, domed building inspired by the Corn Market in Paris and by "Hindu style", that is what was known from reports of buildings in India. The whole edifice, now known as The Dome, took five years to build, cost £70,000 and had room for 60 horses. Most importantly, it completely overshadowed the Marine Palace.

This would not do. George was not going to put up with his horses having a more splendid residence than he did. When he became Regent thanks to his father's madness and consequently had access to rather more money, George commissioned the greatest architect of the time, John Nash, to build him the greatest palace of all time.

Nash made use of revolutionary techniques of cast iron frameworks to cover Holland's original building in a riot of domes and minarets, also supposedly in "Hindu style". He also extended the building at each end creating the two main staterooms, the Banqueting Hall and the Music Room. The total cost of the project is rumoured to have been over a £1 million.

By the time the Pavilion was finished George had become King and had rather less time for socialising than before. In addition he found that his palace was so remarkable that it attracted an endless stream of tourists. Disliking being stared at all the time, George hardly used the finished building. His successor, William IV, quite liked the place, but Queen Victoria found it too gaudy and far too public. She preferred the secluded Osborne House on the Isle of Wight and, having stripped the Pavilion of anything valuable, sold it to Brighton council. Thankfully the current Queen has returned many of the original fittings, or allowed reproductions to be made, so that the Pavilion can be seen in all of its splendour.

Although Prince George had something of a reputation as a rake and womaniser, he did have one great love in his life. Unfortunately she was six years older than him, a widow and, worst of all, a Catholic. Britain has strict rules about the marriage of potential monarchs, hence the huge fuss over Edward VIII and the American divorcee, Wallis Simpson. Hence also the reason why the current Prince of Wales was unable to marry his Catholic lover, Camilla Parker-Bowles, and so on through the whole unfortunate Diana affair.

Such royal scandals are not new, and the affair between George IV and Mrs. Maria Fitzherbert was a classic of the genre. The pair first met at the opera in Brighton when the Prince was in his early twenties. He quickly became besotted with the older woman and sought to make her his mistress. It seems that Maria was well aware of the dangers of such a relationship, but the Prince was persistent. There were tantrums; there were tears, even an attempted suicide.

Somehow or other, and it is not clear whether this was at her insistence or his, the pair married in secret. Naturally the King and Parliament were not happy, and a bitter row resulted. The marriage was declared to have never happened, and George was forcibly married off to Princess Caroline of Brunswick. Maria complained to the Pope who said that in his view the marriage was valid, though his view held little weight in England. However, marriage documents have been found, so it seems that the Pope was right.

George and Caroline hated each other on sight and barely spoke for the rest of their lives. George even had his wife banned from Westminster Abbey during his coronation. It is said that when he died a locket containing a picture of Maria Fitzherbert was found around his neck.

For more details of the story, try this web site.

Georgian England experienced a boom in housing unlike anything experienced before or since. It was a time when fabulous mansions were springing up throughout the countryside, and even the middle classes could afford splendid terraced houses in fashionable places like London, Bath and Brighton. These days we complain at how the sea fronts in places like Spain and Florida are covered in miles of buildings, but the English started the fashion and Brighton is a prime example of the art.

Today when we think of a "housing estate" we may think of one of Britain's soulless collections of "little boxes all the same", or one of the walled and gated fortresses in which the American middle classes hide from the poor. Worse, we may think of some hideous array of graffiti-covered tower blocks. In the early 19th Century, however, a "housing estate" was a new terrace of fine Georgian town houses.

Prime amongst these in Brighton was Kemp Town, a creation of local lord of the manor and MP, Thomas Read Kemp. Employing architect Charles Busby and builder Amon Wilds he set out to create a completely new residential region on the cliffs to the east of Brighton. The original grand conception has been substantially re-worked, but there is still an impressive array of housing to see.

Not content with this, Busby and Wilds also got involved with Brunswick Town, a development between Brighton and Hove. The most spectacular elements of this area are Brunswick Square and Adelaide Terrace.

These days, of course, such splendid houses are far too expensive for ordinary families and most of them have been converted into hotels, offices and flats.

One of the most obvious cultural inventions of Victorian Britain was the seaside pier, and Brighton has two fine examples. The most famous, and architecturally the most impressive, is the West Pier. This was opened in 1866 as a simple means to take the sea air without the inconvenience of getting wet. Substantial alterations were made over the next 50 years, including covered walkways for when the sea air is a sight too bracing, and a fine concert hall. Since then the pier has been largely unchanged, making it an excellent example of Victorian engineering. Sadly what it has not been is preserved.

Piers, by their very nature, need constant care and attention to restore the inevitable damage done by wind and surf. If the pier is not making money, it deteriorates. The West Pier is in such a dangerous state that it has been closed to the public since 1975. However, its value as an architectural monument has been recognised in its classification as a Grade I listed building - it is the only pier to be so honoured. A trust has been set up to raise money for restoring the pier to its former glory, and money is being sought from the Heritage and Lottery Fund. For more information about the pier and the restoration project see the West Pier Trust web site.

In contrast the Palace Pier is very much still a going concern. You can promenade along it, and partake of the modern day version of the authentic pier experience. Of course what this means is tacky souvenir shops, arcades of slot machines, fairground rides and shops selling all sorts of processed sugar. It is a far cry from the elegance of Victorian times, but it is also blessedly free of the social pretension.

Also visible along the sea front is an array of arches under the main sea wall. These were originally used by fishermen and traders, but they are now home to a fascinating array of shops, tourist attractions and night clubs. Brighton beach is a busy place. This journal was researched in January so things were a little quiet, but even so I found two delightful little museums, each of which has its own entry.

One of the more colourful inhabitants of Brighton was the Victorian inventor, Magnus Volk. Volk was an enthusiastic pioneer of new electrical technology. He wired up his own home, and also brought the first ever telephone service to Brighton. He is most famous, however, for his railway.

In 1883 Volk built the first electric-powered railway in Britain, this being a time when steam power dominated rail transport. That would have been an amazing achievement, were it not for the fact that, with typical Victorian eccentricity, he chose to build it along the beach. Yes, on the beach. Now leaving aside any questions of the unfortunate affinity of electricity for sea water, there was the thorny little problem of the weather. Every time there was a particularly severe storm, parts of the track would get washed away. However, Volk persevered and believe it or not part of the railway is still there today. I attach photographs to prove it.

Volk's talent for electrification made him a celebrity in Brighton and he won commissions to wire up both the Royal Pavilion and the Dome, the horses having long since been evicted and the building converted into a concert hall. He went on to run an electric launch service along the Thames, and once built an electric car for the Sultan of Turkey.

The other Brighton monument with a connection to Volk is the Clock Tower. This stands smack in the middle of the town centre at the corner of North Street and West Street. It was built to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of Queen Victoria and for the most part is typical Victorian preposterous grandeur. The famous architectural critic, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, described it as "worthless".

However, if you look at the photograph you will see that the tower is toped by a tall pole, at the base of which is a metal sphere. This was part of the clock. Volk had it connected by telephone line to Greenwich Observatory to make sure it kept correct time. And he designed an hydraulic mechanism that would raise and lower the sphere on the pole once an hour.

Sadly the local people soon found the mechanism too noisy and demanded that the council disable it. Plans are now afoot to have the mechanism restored. Hopefully the new version will be less of a nuisance.

Given the amount of traffic between London and Brighton, and the fact that the journey took days by horse, it was inevitable that a railway linking the cities would fast become a popular idea. There was just one problem: the South Downs stood square in the way, and railway engines do not like hills. The newly formed London & Brighton Railway Company hired the famous engineer, Robert Stephenson, as a consultant. The great man preached caution and recommended that his client accept a proposal by George Bidder that would result in a long route but minimised engineering risks. However, the company bravely decided to go with a proposal from one George Rennie who boldly proposed to lay a straight line between the cities, tunnelling and bridging everything that got in the way. Rennie's plans involved several lengthy tunnels and two large viaducts, which make the London to Brighton line one of the more impressive feats of engineering on Britain's railways.

Of course you cannot see any of that from central Brighton. However, you can visit the magnificent Victorian station. As you can see from the photographs, it has one of those splendid arched roofs of which the Victorians were so fond. It isn't quite on the same scale as the great London terminuses such as Paddington, but for a small city it is very impressive. It has also been beautifully restored and probably looks much better today than it did when covered in soot from steam trains.

Parliament gave permission for the Brighton railway in 1837. It took Rennie and his team (3,500 men and 570 horses) four years and over £2.5 million to finish the line, but finish they did and on September 21st 1841 the first train from London rolled into Brighton station. In those days the railway started from the suburbs of south London, but in 1846 the company amalgamated with the London & Croydon Railway, giving it access to Victoria Station just a few hundred yards from Buckingham Palace itself. The resulting London, Brighton & South Coast Railway, with its distinctive yellow-ochre livery, became one of the most famous railway companies in Victorian Britain. It also completely changed the nature of Brighton. Now the ordinary people of London could visit the seaside for the day for a fare of less than 20p each way. The great tradition of British seaside holidays had been born.

Trains still run regularly between Brighton and London Victoria. The Connex express service does the journey in about an hour. There is now also an option to travel directly into the Capital's financial district on the Thameslink service. One of the major stops on the route is Gatwick Airport, making Brighton an easy destination for visitors from all parts of the world.

For many years Brighton has been a favourite haunt of writers and artists. They seem to find the sea air conducive to the creative arts, and I must say I agree with them. Here are just a few of the famous names associated with the city.

William Makepeace Thackeray wrote most of Vanity Fair in Brighton. In The Newcomes he has an amiable character called Dr. Brighton, reflecting his view that the area was good for both body and soul. His favourite hotel was the Royal Albion.

Charles Dickens also visited Brighton on many occasions. He wrote most of Oliver Twist there, and several scenes from Dombey and Son are based in Brighton.

Oscar Wilde loved the town. Because some of his activities there were even more disreputable than those of Prince George he is not so often mentioned in local histories. Doubtless he would be well pleased that Brighton is now famous for its gay community and has one of the largest gay and lesbian festivals in the country.

Unsurprisingly, Jane Austen makes use of Brighton in several of her novels. Conan Doyle also mentions the area in his book, Rodney Stone.

Perhaps the most famous novel about Brighton is Graham Greene's Brighton Rock. Once again the local people are not too keen on this, given that the book features a vicious criminal gang. However, the book has been taken to heart by the seaside stall holders who specialise in those sticks of tooth-breaking candy so beloved of British children.

Nowadays Brighton has become a favourite haunt for science fiction writers. The UK's only SF magazine, Interzone, is based here. Brighton is also home to authors Tom Arden, Jeff Noon and Gwyneth Jones.