It’s a long way from the northeast to Brighton in East Sussex, but easy to get to and perhaps a place to put on your own railway bucket list. I made a short visit there on Wednesday 29th March on a fast Thameslink train from London Bridge, which had come through from St. Pancras, which is right next door to King’s Cross where London trains arrive from the north east. Several operators go to Brighton (Thameslink, Southern and Gatwick Express, which are all owned by GTR, a transport company with its roots in the bus company Go-Ahead which started life in Chester-le-Street as the Northern General Transport Company in 1913. The company acquired the local and highly successful Brighton and Hove bus company in 1993, which has the highest usage of bus services outside London.
By the way, the fares vary between the three related companies, so avoid the expensive and only marginally faster Gatwick Express, and try Thameslink which does the journey from London in a little over an hour. If I were the controlling mind behind the forthcoming Great British Railways, I would establish the Gatwick Express as a premium product running non-stop between Gatwick and London Victoria only and make all the other fares on the route down to Brighton fully interchangeable between the various London terminals on Southern and Thameslink.
I restricted my visit to the area walkable from the impressive station, which is a little inland from the coast. I started in The Lanes and the strangely named North Road which actually runs east-west. There is a mix of residential and shopping streets, where white houses run between garishly painted independent shops. In one pedestrianised road named Kensington Gardens, I found an entire street of small indie concerns with just one Oxfam shop giving a nod towards the national chains. The entire area could take an entire afternoon on its own with plenty of bakeries and coffee houses too.
Sandy beaches it has not, but Brighton’s other attractions are worth seeking out. I passed the Royal Pavilion built for George Prince of Wales (to become George IV). On reaching the seafront, I sought out Volk’s Electric Railway which has been operating since 1883 and was the first public electric railway in Britain. Although it appeared closed, staff were inside and they told me they were carrying out test runs for the seasonal opening on Saturday when services would begin to the Brighton Marina in Kemp Town to the east of the city centre. Also in the area is a long zip wire from a tower and the pirate-themed crazy golf. I elected to take a walk on the Palace Pier amongst the rather pricey food outlets to the funfair on the end of the pier and took a solo ride on Horror Hotel, a ghost train which was an experience no worse than the average Britannia Hotel.
Once off the pier, I walked west and found the free and most interesting fishery museum underneath some of the seafront arches, beyond which I bought a kippers in ciabatta sandwich from the smokehouse, overlooking the rusting framework of the West Pier which has had a chequered history and is now almost consigned to the waves. Where the West Pier linked to the seafront is the British Airways i360 which opened in 2016. This is a vertical observation tower, like a tall pole up and down which moves a pod full of visitors who have a 25 minute experience ascending to a height of 162 metres. It was designed by the same team who built the London Eye, towards which I was shortly to return for an evening at the races.
I promise we will go somewhere with a sandy beach a lot closer to home next month.
