Brighton Beach Hut

It's taken me a good couple off weeks to get around to blogging this, but what the hey. Here's the results of a trip to Brighton. Of course the first place we headed for was the Royal Pavilion.

As far as beach huts go this was certainly on the opulent side. George IV was never shy with his decorating. Still - while it is certainly larger than your average beach hut it still has an intimacy which comes with its scale (smaller than an out-and-out palace). You can even imagine the largest rooms being filled to the brim with people. It's a holiday home.

While many of the rooms have been restored there's still obviously a lot of work still to do. The biggest shame, I think, was the fact that all the windows were hung with heavy curtains or dark nets. I can understand the necessity for keeping light levels low to preserve the furnishings and decorations, but it does destroy the impression of what the place was really like. You can see from the external pic here, and the interior shots on the website that the place is covered with windows. Many of the ground floor rooms feel like glorified conservatories so the effect of light with the windows allowed to admit it would have been amazing. It is quite disappointing not to be able to see the place as it was built and intended.

The other place of note visited was the pier. The Doctor Who exhibition has long-since left and the weather was perishing but it's still a compulsory attraction. The seagulls there have become so emboldened that they hover so close that it feels like a scene from Hitchcock's The Birds. I've never been one to be freaked by birds, but this was something else.