Once a weathered, seedy seaside resort town immortalized in Graham Green’s Brighton Rock, Brighton has had a facelift in recent years, becoming an extended suburb of London, just 50 miles to the north. Far from a typical English seaside town, Brighton has always been big on personality and grit. England’s former party boy, the Prince Regent (the future King George IV,) spent his bachelor days here and the city has been renowned for entertainment ever since. Today Brighton attracts a constant influx of students, media types, artists, musicians and Londoners, all of who do love to be beside the seaside.
Brighton Beach
The beach is Brighton’s main draw, even though there’s no sand (it’s all pebbles or shale) and the water is colder than most tourists would prefer. The coastline offers a never-ending stretch of blue horizon and the beach’s seafront is lined with bars, restaurants, a number of elegant Regency squares, artists’ studios and nightclubs. Bars such as the Beach, Tzar Bar, Honey Club, Funky Buddha and Arc Bar are active year-round—there’s never really a quiet time here. The main stretch is between the Palace Pier and the Western Pier, whose corrugated skeleton dominates the horizon.
When Brighton was a small fishing village, the beach was filled with boats and fishing nets, but eventually gave way to Britain’s social elite, which came to “take the waters.” Nowadays, crowds collect at the Palace Pier, which is full of kitsch arcade attractions and food stalls selling donuts and sugary treats, and offers a fantastic view of the seafront.
The Western Pier, built in 1866 and closed in 1975, slowly crumbled over the years as severe storms and finally, a massive fire in 2003 pushed it back into the sea. What’s left today is its graceful Victorian frame, which is the perfect backdrop for sunsets (and postcards of sunsets).
Royal Pavilion
What resembles an Indian palace on the outside with an ornate Chinese interior, Brighton’s Royal Pavilion looks like it materialized from 1,001 Tales of the Arabian nights. This is the city’s quintessential landmark. Built for the pleasure-loving Prince Regent as an extravagant seaside retreat, the cream-colored palace features bulbous minarets and faces a garden that has been maintained to reflect Regency period tastes.
The interior, filled with gilded dragons, imitation bamboo staircases and exotic, bold decor, is worth the entry price (less than £10.) You can also have tea in the Royal Tearoom. Or go outside and snap photos of the building’s oriental domes, as visitors have done over the years, to remember this architectural wonder.
Shopping
Shopping in Brighton is a like going on a visual treasure hunt. Avoid the mainstream shopping area near Western Road and instead head towards the North Laine and the Lanes, both bustling areas interspersed with independent stores and boutiques.
The Lanes, a labyrinth of quaint narrow streets harking back to the city’s original fishing village days, are filled with antique shops (some selling military weapons), jewellers and some of the city’s best restaurants. The area extends from the seafront to North Street between Ship Street and the Old Steine.
In comparison, bohemians, students, scenesters, tourists and buskers flock to the North Laine, (literally just north of North Street,) where 300 independent stores and stalls are crammed into half a square mile and several streets are blocked off to traffic during the weekend, inviting shoppers to casually pool in the center. You can find just about anything here—from ethnic goods, skateboarder chic, books and records to vegetarian shoes—or hang out at one of the area’s few dozen cafes, pubs, restaurants or theatres. The vibe here is eclectic, cosmopolitan and alternative, much more than London's Camden Market.
Infinity foods
A workers co-operative and one of the UK’s first (and now foremost) wholesale distributors of organic and natural foods, Infinity Foods got its start in 1971 and is now a Brighton institution. Stocked with an extensive range of mouth-drooling vegetarian products, including raw vegan chocolates, organic wines and freshly baked breads and pastries, the cooperative pioneered healthy eating when Jamie Oliver was still flinging his school lunch at unsuspecting girls. While products can be expensive, as can be expected with organic food, they are top quality. The store, located on North Road in the heart of the North Laine, is a meeting place for locals, from semi-obsessed health nuts to hungry day trippers who have been drawn in by the window display. And because this is a cooperative — everyone’s boss here — the service is friendly, personalized and unrushed.
Around the corner on Gardner Street, the store has its own cafe, offering freshly made vegan and vegetarian fare. While Britain’s past culinary reputation may have seemed an oxymoron, it has become a nation of foodies and nowhere is this more present than in Brighton and stores such as Infinity.
Music Scene
It’s a slight exaggeration, but in Brighton everyone is in a band--and the rest are music junkies. The city’s resume is thick with musicians who made it big: Fat Boy Slim, Primal Scream, Bat For Lashes and The Maccabees, for starters, and there’s no lack of new, upcoming talent. Throughout town there are excellent live music venues and night clubs continue to reinvent themselves, catering to university and influx of foreign language students during the summer.
Brighton has a vibrant, progressive and diverse music scene, which the city celebrates by holding music festivals throughout the year. Considering Brighton’s size, (population: 150,000) it offers a plethora of choices. Here’s a taster: there’s the Freebutt pub, a cramped space for indie and punk bands, the Jazz Rooms for jazz or the Brighton Centre, a large venue with 5,000 seats, featuring well-known acts. The city also has a thriving gay and lesbian scene, with clubs catering to their tastes.
Dara Colwell - As a military brat, I was shuttled from place to place with little say in the destination. This habit stuck well into my teenage years, ...
