DEL.ICIO.USBRIGHTON BY THE SEA
Popular resort bridges old, new Britain with restored pavilion, famous pier
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Brighton, England — The only glimpse of water most American visitors to the United Kingdom get is of the Thames River as it winds through London.
To really get a sense of the British soul, you need to go down to the sea.
Copyright The Royal Pavilion, Libraries & Museums
For dinner, 36 guests can be accommodated at a single table in the Banqueting Room of the Royal Pavilion. Here it’s set for the dessert course for more than two dozen.
Copyright The Royal Pavilion, Libraries & Museums
With its minarets and domes, the Royal Pavilion is sometimes called a ‘semidetached suburban Taj Mahal.’
Photos by LEA DONOSKY/AJC
Quaint shops line a picturesque brick-paved street in Brighton.
Getting there
• Expect to pay about $500 for a nonstop, round-trip coach ticket between Atlanta and London. From London to Brighton, take the train from Victoria Station; a round-trip, express ticket is about $40.
Where to stay
• The De Vere Grand, Brighton; seafront location on Kings Road. Dating to 1864, it underwent extensive renovation in the 1980s. Rates start at about $340 (breakfast and tax included). Ocean views extra. Check for special offers. 011-44-1273 224300, http://www.devereonline.co.uk.
What to do
• Royal Pavilion: Palace admission is about $12 for adults, younger than 16 about $7. 011-44-1273 292822, http://www.royalpavilion.org.uk.
Information
• Virtual Brighton, http://www.brighton.co.uk.
Easily done. Just 50 minutes by train and about $40 round trip from Victoria Station lies “London by the sea.”
Brighton, like the nation, has had its ups and downs: chic holiday spot for the British upper crust in the 1800s, a damaged reputation as crime-ridden in the 1960s, victim of cheap airfares as holiday-makers headed abroad, and a toll taken by terrorism when the IRA bombed the city’s best hotel in 1984, killing five and barely missing its target, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Then nature delivered a devastating blow in 1987, a storm that destroyed one of the city’s two famous piers and severely damaged another of its biggest attractions, the Royal Pavilion.
Today Brighton is back. The Royal Pavilion, one of the most unusual and certainly the most fanciful palace in the land, has been restored. Neighborhoods of Regency-style houses have been rehabbed, some by Londoners seeking lower real estate prices. Chic shops and restaurants are thriving, and the iconic Brighton Pier with its carny games, video arcades and amusement park rides, endures.
I, too, had come back, 25 years after my first visit. It was then I witnessed how deep in the British DNA runs the connection with water.
A friend and I arrived for a weekend visit just as a Greek freighter ran aground a few hundred yards from shore. On a Sunday morning, we joined thousands of local residents lined up on the boardwalk to watch the effort to rescue the ship. As the freighter was finally freed, the crowd spontaneously broke out in song: “Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves.”
Those days of empire are gone, but not the remembrance of glory and the love of the sea. Today Brighton combines the nostalgic and the new and is the nation’s most popular seaside resort.
A nostalgia tour requires a visit to Brighton Pier, extending into the English Channel, and for the most part frozen in time somewhere around 1940. Sure there are video games in the arcades, but there also are the old-fashioned “pitch-something-and-win-a-stuffed-animal-for your sweetheart” booths. You must buy some Brighton Rock, a candy hard enough to crack your teeth. At night, the pier is gaily lit. Entrance is free.
It may be difficult in London to find a proper fish and chips shop, but not in Brighton. There are entire restaurants specializing in fish and chips. My suggestion is go traditional. Buy some batter-fried cod and potatoes wrapped to go in paper from one of the stands along the pier, sprinkle with vinegar and eat. That’s what Virginia Beardshaw, director of U.K. services for the Red Cross in London, did on a recent visit to Brighton with her husband and 9-year-old son.
“Ride the Crazy Mouse,” she urged. “You swing out over the Channel. It was my son’s favorite.”
I chose a different encounter with the water, a walk along the pebbled beach, almost deserted in winter but with fascinating sites tucked under the boardwalk — cafes, art galleries and a fishermen’s museum. In summertime, the beach will be covered with bodies. Some hardy Brits will go in the water, but unless you grew up in New England, you probably won’t want to even wet a toe without renting a full wet suit for warmth.
The Lanes is another must. The warren of narrow alleys follows the lines of the original fishing village. Visitors can join holiday-making Britons as they stroll the walkways which are lined with jewelers, shops selling old prints and maps and antique stores. With the strong pound, though, an American visitor is probably better off as a browser than as a buyer.
One sight not to be missed is just a five-minute walk from the Lanes, the Royal Pavilion. Gorgeously tacky, this pleasure palace built for a prince who later became King George IV, almost defies description.
Called everything from “a golden Russian turnip” to a “semidetached suburban Taj Mahal,” the Royal Pavilion started out as a simple farmhouse. Its last transformation was done by famed architect John Nash, who between 1815 and 1823 reinvented it as an Indian-style palace with colorful domes and minarets.
The interior is every bit as fanciful as the exterior. Nine lotus-shaped chandeliers dominate the Music Room. The Banqueting Room, though, is the most spectacular. A dragon holds the central chandelier. The dining table is set for dessert for more than two dozen. A menu for June 15, 1817, calls for 36 entrees.
The next room on the tour, though, is the one that captivates many visitors. “Now that’s a kitchen,” exclaimed a middle-aged American to his wife as a group of us entered the triple-height room, in which four cast-iron columns topped by palm leaves painted copper support the roof. The king thought so, too, sometimes taking his meals here as well as offering his guests a tour of the place their meal came from. Today more than 150 copper pots line the walls, and examples of dishes that would have been prepared here sit on the work tables.
After a day of sightseeing you can choose to take the train back to London, or stay the night. There are hundreds of hotels and guest houses in all price ranges from which to choose.
For a splurge, I chose the five-star De Vere Grand hotel. Dating to 1864, this white Italian Renaissance building is a landmark along the coast. It has been restored since the IRA bombing. It retains the traditions of afternoon tea in the lobby, a liveried doorman and a dining room heavy on roast game dishes. But it has up-to-date plumbing and a health spa, which is where I headed at the end of the day.
No, I didn’t go there to exercise. The steam room seemed the perfect way to take the chill off from a walk on the beach.
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