A bad day for the Palace Pier

On this day (19 October) in 1973, the seaward head of Palace Pier was catastrophically damaged during a violent gale. A seventy-tonne barge, being used to dismantle the old landing stage, broke free amid strong westerly winds and heavy seas. Dragging its moorings, the vessel was hurled against the pier and repeatedly struck the theatre pavilion at the pier head, causing devastating structural damage - see Wikipedia and Heritage Gateway.

At the time of the incident the pier head’s construction consisted of cast-iron screw-piles supporting a lattice of steel girders and rolled-steel joists, over which wooden deck planking was laid. The theatre pavilion sat on this structure, offering seating for around 1,500 to 1,800 patrons, and was reached via a broad deck extension over the sea. The barge impact was concentrated on the theatre and its supporting ironwork, causing failure of key structural members and partial collapse of the deck immediately seaward of the pavilion. However, the helter skelter, the ‘crazy maze’, a first aid post, a telephone box, and a bar cellar were all wrecked, and 25 of the pier’s piles were smashed.

The collision unleashed debris of heavy steel girders, cast-iron columns and wooden deck planks. Some deck sections became detached and sank, while large members dangled or fell onto the beach below (see below). The damage cost was estimated in contemporaneous reports at around £100,000 (in 1973 value) for structural repairs.

Emergency response involved sealing off the pier head to the public immediately. Maintenance crews and demolition contractors worked in hazardous, wave-swept conditions to stabilise the damaged end. Temporary shores and supports were installed beneath the damaged deck. The stranded barge was subsequently re-moored and removed only after the gale abated. The landing stage, long unused, was demolished in 1975, no longer viable after the impact.

In the aftermath the theatre pavilion was never reopened; the functional use of that section shifted away from theatre and concert use towards amusement arcade and ride-based layout. The event represents a technical turning point: structural loss of the theatre and support framing accelerated the pier’s transformation in use and reinforced the vulnerability of marine-based structures to drift-load impacts in gale conditions.

The images above have been taken from a striking video freely available on YouTube - The Storm of 1973 That Ravaged Brighton Pier by Tom Goes Nomad. Here is one viewer’s (@phaasch) comment on the video: ‘Wonderful feature, with some brilliant photographs. I remember all this so well. I was 13 at the time. The day after the storm, the beach all the way to Black Rock was a mass of wreckage, mostly pitch pine decking, silver painted onion domes, and bits of Moorish arches. It was a pitiful sight amongst the grey and the spray. But it was rebuilt, and I remember going into the theatre auditorium just once, and being knocked out by its beauty. The seats were dark blue plush, the decorations gilt and white.

But the worst thing was the coming back. One winter’s afternoon in 1986 I drove down from London with a girlfriend. I wanted to show her the town where I grew up. As we came along Marine Parade, the Pier came into view, and the theatre had gone. Vanished. No one ever said where to, just gone. I know we later sat on the beach in the dying yellow light of December, and I felt part of my childhood slip away. The rest of Brighton followed, bit by bit, over the coming years. Its an alien place, now.’

New Hove beach huts

Brighton & Hove City Council has just received a planning application to install ten new beach huts on the Western Esplanade, directly south of Hove Lagoon. According to the application form, the huts will match the style of the long lines already seen on Hove promenade, but fill in gaps between them. The council proposes to purchase them from Kairos Global, a company which trialled a seasonal set of huts on Kings Esplanade near the Meeting Place café - see New temp beach huts for renting. Once installed, the new huts will be sold on the open market to Brighton & Hove residents.

The block and location plans show the huts arranged in a row against the seawall overlooking the lagoon. Each hut is to be built in timber with shiplap panelling, measuring just under two metres wide by nearly three metres deep, with inward-opening doors and a simple pitched roof. The site occupies an 80 square metre strip of promenade, filling empty gaps between existing huts, extending the continuous line westwards.

The project will add about 30 square metres of new non-residential floorspace under the category of local community use. No parking spaces, access changes or services are required, and no trees or hedgerows will be affected. A wildlife screening check flagged that the development lies near sensitive coastal habitats and within 10 km of several Sites of Special Scientific Interest. It advised that surveys by a qualified ecologist may be required for species such as bats, birds, amphibians and invertebrates. However, the applicant (the council itself) argued that biodiversity net gain requirements do not apply, since no habitat will be impacted and the scale falls below the threshold.

The council will review consultation responses before making a decision. If planning application BH2025/02164 is approved, the huts will expand Hove’s tradition of brightly painted chalets further west along the seafront, linking with the leisure uses of the lagoon and its watersports centre. See also Brighton and Hove News.

Brighton’s fishing past

Just inside the vaulted arches of the marvellous Brighton Fishing Museum rests Sussex Maid, a clinker-built beach punt that once worked the inshore waters off Brighton and Shoreham. Her black-painted stem proudly bears the registry mark SM 380, the ‘SM’ denoting Shoreham. With her varnished planking and bluff bow, she embodies the traditional form of Sussex beach boats that for generations were launched and hauled directly from the shingle.

The Sussex Maid was built in the 1920s by Courtney & Birkett of Southwick, a noted yard for small fishing craft. She belonged to Brighton fisherman Robert ‘Bobby’ Leach, part of the long-established Leach fishing family, and was worked with nets and lines in the waters off the beach. Although fitted with an auxiliary motor, like other Brighton boats, she would have been hauled up the shingle by capstan and crew.

Beach boats like this were the backbone of Brighton’s fishing community until well into the twentieth century. Their sturdy clinker hulls could withstand the pounding surf, and their crews were experts at reading tides and weather. The Sussex Maid is a rare survivor of that fleet. Retired from service, and now set among nets, lobster pots and photographs, she was preserved as the centrepiece of the Fishing Museum when it opened in 1994, standing as both an exhibit and a memorial to generations of Brighton fishermen.

Much of Brighton’s fishing history has been captured in Catching Stories: Voices from the Brighton Fishing Community (QueenSpark Books, 1996). The project, which began in 1993, sought to preserve the memories and daily realities of a declining local fishing community. Organised thematically rather than by individual life story, the book weaves selected excerpts from transcripts into chapters on beach life, types of fishing, the role of women, the market side of fisheries, and changing technologies and social pressures. It can be freely downloaded from QueenSpark’s website. 

Busking on the seafront - yes please

Brighton’s seafront busking tradition has long been part of its festival character, with musicians and street performers enlivening the promenade, the piers and the Lanes. For decades it has operated largely on a basis of informal tolerance, supported by a voluntary code rather than formal regulation. The city council’s guidance confirms that no licence is required, but it sets limits: no amplification, no drumming, and no more than one hour in any spot between 10am and 10pm. Enforcement has tended to be complaint-led rather than systematic. (Here is Unörthadox playing Madeira Drive earlier this year.)

In 2018, attempts to restrict busking in Pavilion Gardens provoked strong public reaction. Proposals to ban amplification or to introduce audition-based access were criticised as undermining the spontaneity that has always defined street performance. Buskers themselves have often tried to ease tensions by informally sharing pitches in high-traffic areas. Films such as Between Two Piers (see film still below) and networks like Brighton Beach Busking have documented the scene, showing how performance has become embedded in seafront life.

The latest dispute - see Brighton and Hove News - centres on a sign erected by the Upside Down House on the seafront, which warned against amplification and percussion and even threatened instrument seizure. This triggered a petition signed by nearly 600 people, calling for the creation of permanent busking zones, including the right to use amplification and percussion, and for some sheltered performance spots to be introduced. Petitioners also asked for a more explicit recognition that busking is an asset for local businesses and tourism.

When the petition was presented to full council on 13 October, councillor Birgit Miller, with responsibility for culture and tourism, acknowledged the value of busking but said local businesses had complained about excessively loud or prolonged performances. She promised a review of the situation and a reconsideration of the current voluntary code. The debate reflects a familiar Brighton tension between protecting a vibrant cultural tradition and addressing concerns about noise and public space management.

Oops, pier opts to drop o and p

Brighton Pier shows a missing o, a proper noun turned provocation; passers-by stop, point, and pose.

On the promenade, popcorn pops; pigeons patrol; photographers compose panoramas.

Above, rope and poles prop the pale front; below, the pier’s pylons drop shadows on the ocean.

A playful proposal: pop the O and the P back atop the roof and proclaim “BRIGHTON PIER” proudly.

For Hattie

xx

Just opened - Quarters

Brighton’s newest music venue - Quarters - opened on the last weekend of September, taking over a number of beach front arches below Kings Road, the same space, in fact, which had housed several incarnations over the years, from the legendary Zap Club in the 1980s, through Digital and finally The Arch (see Raving and misbehaving).

Quarters arrives under the control of A Man About A Dog, the London-based promoters behind Junction 2, LWE, Boundary Festival and The Prospect Building in Bristol. They have also partnered with Ghostwriter to programme live acts, ensuring that the new venue will not depend solely on DJs but will mix live music with electronic nights.

The Arch’s two main rooms have been reworked into one expansive dance floor, centred on a 360-degree DJ booth. A bespoke L-Acoustics A15 surround sound system has been installed, along with a fresh lighting philosophy that aims to support rather than distract. Seating and chill-out areas have been incorporated, while the promoters talk about a two-phase rebuild that will continue into 2026. In its own publicity, Quarters is not simply a rebrand but a transformation of the space, intended to put Brighton back on the national map for electronic and live music - see also its Facebook page. 

Quarters opened on Friday 26 September with Rossi  headlining and followed on the Saturday by Shy FX. In the weeks ahead names on the bill include DJ EZ, Jyoty, Laurent Garnier, Pendulum, Todd Terje, Andy C, Bou, D.O.D, Everything Everything, Neffa-T and Crazy P. The programme is deliberately broad, mixing house, techno and drum & bass with live bands, and setting out to build long sets, inclusivity and local collaboration into its identity. Tickets are being structured with some allocations as low as five pounds, another gesture towards building a new community around the arches.

The Brighton Behemoth

Found on Brighton Beach - Specimen BRB-2025-021: a weathered mass bearing uncanny zoological features, documented and classified under the provisional name Arboris behemothus. The initial field sketch depicts the living form as imagined by researchers: a hybrid organism with arboreal integument, pachydermal bulk, and a proboscis adapted for both foraging and respiration. While no living specimens have been observed, the morphology reconstructed from the find suggests an evolutionary convergence between megafaunal mammals and coastal flora, raising debate as to whether the remains represent fossilised biology or a natural artefact misinterpreted through pareidolia.

Specimen Data File – BRB-2025-021

Specimen Name: Arboris behemothus (colloquial: Brighton Behemoth)

Classification:

Kingdom: Animalia (disputed, hybrid traits with Plantae)

Phylum: Chordata (?)

Class: Mammalia (arboreal-adapted, extinct)

Order: Indeterminate

Family: Unknown

Discovery location: Brighton Beach, East Sussex, UK

Date of record: 13 October 2025

Collector: Anonymous beach observer

Condition: Semi-fossilised drift specimen, partially mineralised; internal cavities resembling pulmonary or ocular structures

Estimated size: 2.1 m length; 0.9 m maximum width

Surface characteristics:

External ridges resembling dermal armour

Hollow chambers suggesting respiratory or sensory function

Elongated protrusion consistent with feeding apparatus or proboscis

Proposed Origin:

        Arboreal megafauna species adapted to both woodland and coastal marsh environments, extinct c. 12,000 BP

Notable Features:

Cavities arranged in bilateral symmetry, resembling ocular sockets

Protruding snout-like structure

Evidence of prolonged exposure to saline and wave action

Remarks:

This specimen represents either the genuine fossil remains of an unknown taxon. Further study recommended. Or, an extreme case of pareidolia (human tendency to perceive creatures in natural forms).