Remembering the Wheel

This week 14 years ago today - on Monday 24 October to coincide with school half-term - the Brighton Wheel formally began turning on Dalton’s Bastion, east of the Palace Pier. The privately funded, 45-metre transportable wheel - variously branded the ‘Brighton O’, the ‘Wheel of Excellence’ and simply the ‘Brighton Wheel’ - was promoted by Paramount Attractions and cost about £6m. 

Temporary planning permission, granted in April 2011, allowed operation until May 2016 and set opening hours from 10am to late evening in the East Cliff conservation area. A Highway Licence followed in August; the German-built R50-SP wheel, fresh from service at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, was shipped to Brighton in September while foundations were laid at the seafront site.

Construction saw the partial removal and later reinstatement requirement for listed railings above the site, and sparked local debate about overlooking and heritage impact balanced against economic benefits. The finished installation had 35 standard gondolas plus a VIP pod, a stated 12-minute, three-revolution ride cycle, and typical operating hours of 10am-11pm. Promoters projected about 250,000 riders a year and said around 30 jobs would be created.

Operationally, the Wheel settled quickly into the visitor landscape as a mid-priced panoramic ride east of the pier. But its permission was explicitly time-limited and linked to plans for the i360 ‘vertical pier’ on the west seafront. (See i360 stranded sky high - with sky-high debts).
In 2015 the council rejected a request to extend the Wheel’s stay, and so it made its final rotations on 8 May 2016. Dismantling beginning that same week. The structure was advertised for sale and then put into storage, with no confirmed buyer announced locally. After closure, the site at Dalton’s Bastion was repurposed for a permanent seafront zip-wire (see The windy stairs.)

A large fairground wheel did, however, make a brief comeback: a similar but different structure was hired for the Brighton Christmas Festival in late 2021 and set up on the Old Steine. But it was the Brighton Wheel on Madeira Drive that has left an imprint on the city’s seafront story. More details can be found at Wikipedia and the Brighton Toy Museum. A defunct Brighton Wheel Facebook page can still be visited (and is the source of the night time image above). A time-lapse series of photographs of the The Rise And Fall Of The Brighton Wheel can be found on Jason Arnopps’ website.

Brighton Beach Scumbags

This day in 1991, Steven Berkoff’s play Brighton Beach Scumbags opened at the Sallis Benney Theatre in Brighton. Directed by George Dillon, it was the inaugural production for the Brighton-based Theatre Events team and quickly gained notoriety for its raw depiction of two East End couples on a seaside outing. The play’s unflinching treatment of casual homophobia, class prejudice and sexual tension caused a stir in the city, while its setting gave Brighton audiences a distorted mirror of their own seafront culture.

Berkoff, born in Stepney in 1937, trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art and went on to build a reputation as one of the most distinctive and provocative voices in British theatre. After working in repertory, he founded the London Theatre Group in the 1960s and began writing and performing plays marked by a visceral physicality and a confrontational use of language. Works such as East (1975), West (1980) and Greek (1980) established him as both playwright and performer, while his career on screen brought memorable roles in films such as A Clockwork Orange, Octopussy and Beverly Hills Cop. His stage adaptations of Kafka and his Shakespeare productions have also drawn international acclaim.

Brighton, though, was not just a convenient setting for Scumbags. Berkoff’s own early memories of the town were affectionate. In his memoir Diary of a Juvenile Delinquent (JR Books, 2010) he writes: ‘Now that the war was over we were able to travel and get around a bit. One day Dad rented a car to take us all on a trip to|Brighton and as it drew past the pavilion, I was gobsmacked at my first glance of the deep blue sea; it was also a perfect summer’s day. We were booked into a pleasant, cheap-and-cheerful B&B and the landlords, a young woman and her husband, looked after us really well - so much so that we all wanted to stay a few more days while Dad went back to Luton since he probably had to work (you never knew with him). We walked everywhere in an idyllic post-war [Brighton] played ‘housy-housy’ on the pier and took the miniature Volk’s railway to Black Rock swimming pool. It was a marvellous lido and this was a blissful time in a typical English summer. (Just above Black Rock is the so-elegant Lewes Crescent, where 40 years hence I would be sitting on my own balcony, watching the sunset from the first-floor flat of a splendid Regency house.)’

That mixture of nostalgia and confrontation runs through Brighton Beach Scumbags, premiered on 23 October 1991 (and revived in 2009 by Loft Theatre). The characters revel in their trips to the beach while simultaneously turning it into a stage for crude outbursts, prejudices and fears. A synopsis of the play can be found at the RDG website. The following extract, from Plays 2 (Faber, 1994), captures the tone:

DINAH: Oh yeah, before you come we had a drink ‘cause we always went there you know, always made a bee-line ‘cause you could sit outside, when we courted Derek and I would drink there . . . got the train from Victoria, a quid return, a quid, went swimming by Black Rock, by the cliffs, lovely it was . . . it was then . . .

DEREK: Oh it was a treat, definitely a treat, walk to Rotters, Rottingdean, tea and scones, jam and butter and cream.

DINAH: Sat outside, it was a bit Continental, or we had a plate of fish and chips.

DEREK: Yeah, and we swam cause we loved swimmin then until one day we saw that turd swimmin in the water, well I could never get in there again . . . never.

DINAH: Horrid!

DEREK: Never!

DINAH: Just horrid.

DEREK: I did say at the time that it was probably an isolated turd, not a fucking sign like of sewage seepage, probably a one-off turd by some little bastard who couldn’t hold it, but I never got in there again.

DINAH: Horrid, it just floated past my ear.

DEREK: Before that we’d love a swim, just let the waves grab you and throw you abaht a bit, love it that, triffic, a wave would pick you up like a dog wiv a bone and bung you down again on the shingle, cor didnarf sting at time but it was handsome, then we’d got for a tandoori in the Lanes, triffic place, did a right handsome prawn vindaloo!

Seahorse on fire

A fire broke out at The Seahorse on Brighton seafront in the early hours of this morning. According to Brighton and Hove News, crews from East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service were called at 00.16 to reports of a blaze in a bin-store beside the venue. Two engines from Preston Circus attended and firefighters wearing breathing apparatus used a hose-reel jet to bring the flames under control, with the incident declared over by 00.45. No casualties were reported. 

Sussex Police were also on the scene and an investigation is under way into whether the blaze was started deliberately. The Seahorse, situated in the King’s Road Arches next to the i360, is one of the most prominent restaurant and events spaces on Brighton’s seafront. 

The building dates from 1951 when it was constructed as part of the Festival of Britain redevelopment of the promenade. It was long known as Alfresco, run by the Colasurdo family from 1996 until 2018, when the lease was sold to the City Pub Company - see Coapt. After refurbishment it traded for a time as the Brighton Beach Club before being rebranded as The Seahorse, offering a restaurant and bar over two levels with a large terrace and panoramic sea views.

The incident was brought under control quickly, limiting damage to the external store. With police treating the blaze as suspicious, the outcome of the investigation will be closely watched by other seafront businesses.

Two years of decadence

And there they were by the Brighton wall, under the rust-green iron of the boardwalk, sprawled out in the million-year pebbles, shoes kicked off like wreckage, tangled together the way kids do when the night before still hums in their blood. The mural above them, some half-face phantom in faded paint, eyes wide with knowing, words bleeding below - Two Years of Decadence - like a prophecy, like a joke, like a sentence we’re all already serving.

And the girl - she wasn’t tangled, no - she leaned off to the side, back against the cold flint wall, listening to her secret music, head tilted to the wide sea nobody could see from here, the sea that keeps time with all the broken beats of the city. She was cool, black coat wrapped around her, headscarf tight, like she’d been here forever, like she knew all the stories the gulls scream and the iron forgets.

It was all there: the damp stink of stone, the sound of a vans clattering above, the faint taste of salt and fried oil drifting from the pier, and the silence between kids who don’t need words, just bodies and the breathing hush of the sea nearby. Decadence? Hell, decadence is just the name the world gives you when you’re young and don’t care and you love too hard to bother about tomorrow.

And the mural - who painted it, who left it to fade? Maybe some kid from a different decade, maybe a dreamer who saw the same wreckage and thought: this is worth marking, this deserves a shrine. Two years, two minutes, two beats of the heart. All the same. The waves will come in and erase it anyway, like everything else.

(Written by ChatGPT in the footsteps of Jack Kerouac.)

Yoga, breath, and spines aligned

For those who like their yoga al fresco, Brighton’s beach offers a mix of weekly classes and one-off events along the seafront, from Hove Lawns to east of Brighton Pier. Local operators list regular outdoor sessions during fair weather, typically switching indoors or cancelling when wind and rain close in. One provider’s current schedule shows Monday morning flows on the pebbles behind the Meeting Point Café, a Thursday evening session on Hove Lawns opposite Brunswick Square, and additional park or seafront slots mid-week. A separate sunrise strand runs weekly through the summer at Rockwater in Hove, with a fallback to the indoor lodge if conditions turn. 

The city’s volunteer-led scene also includes an annual ‘Yoga on the Beach’ day beside the i360, featuring back-to-back classes from local teachers and suggested-donation pricing to raise funds for community wellbeing projects. Tourism listings continue to flag beach and outdoor yoga as a Brighton staple, and commercial platforms are advertising 2025 dates and times, suggesting steady demand for sea-air sessions as autumn sets in. See Brighton Yoga, Studio iO, Brighton Natural Health Foundation; and here’s a ditty to pass the time, by ChatGPT.

Yoga on the pebbles

On Brighton’s stones, the mats are spread,
A stretch of spines, a lift of head.
Gulls keep off - know the score,
Those spiky fences guard this shore.

The pebbles jab, but none complain,
They breathe it out, release the pain.
The sea rolls in with measured tone,
A metronome of waves on stone.

Cobra rises, shoulders tall,
A chorus line along the wall.
The water bottles gleam in rows,
As steadfast as the students’ pose.

The sea rolls in, a patient guide,
It hums its mantra, tide by tide.
So Brighton’s beach becomes a shrine,
For yoga, breath, and spines aligned.

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.