Last of the Sea-swans

Beneath the pale autumn sun, where the shingle of Brighton meets the quieter waters of the Lagoon, there stood a marvel that few now remember and fewer still believe. For in those days the boundary between the Small Folk and the Elder Things was thinner, and the Sea had not yet forgotten its old alliances.

The swan rose from the water like a white hill newly lifted from the deep. Its neck curved in a noble arc, taller than the mast of any fisherman’s boat, and its beak shone gold as if hammered by forgotten smiths. Around it lay bright, broken craft - petty vessels of later days - clustered like driftwood at the feet of a king. The swan did not trouble itself with them. Its gaze was set westward, toward the long green slopes and the houses of men, as though it remembered an age when none of those things had been built.

This was Alquëmar, last of the Sea-swans, who had flown in ages past between the Grey Havens and lands beyond the sunset. Wounded by storms and wearied by the waning of magic, he had come at last to rest in the still waters beside the open sea, choosing the Lagoon as a final refuge. There he slept through long years, half stone, half dream, while Men forgot the old songs.

But on a morning of clear light, when gulls wheeled low and the tide lay quiet, Alquëmar stirred. The Sea had spoken in whispers during the night, telling him that its memory was failing, that iron and noise pressed ever closer to the shore. He rose then, water cascading from his flanks, and for a while his reflection trembled upon the surface, white upon grey, as if the world itself hesitated.

Those who passed nearby felt it, though they did not know why. A sudden stillness fell; the wind dropped; even the birds were hushed. Some later said they felt an unaccountable sorrow, others a strange hope, like the echo of a tale heard in childhood and nearly lost.

When the sun climbed higher, the swan lowered his head once more. His task was done. He did not fly, for that power had long departed, but he sank gently back into the water, becoming again a silent shape among the lesser boats. Yet something lingered. The Lagoon seemed deeper, the sea beyond it older and more watchful.

And it is said - though only by those who walk the beach at dusk and listen carefully - that if the water is calm and the light just right, you may glimpse a white curve rising from the surface, and hear, faint and far away, the sound of wings that once carried the world’s first dreams over the edge of the Sea.

With apologies to J. R. R. Tolkien.

No burning of the clocks

Brighton’s Burning the Clocks will not take place today, 21 December. Same Sky, the community arts charity that created and runs the event, says 2025 will be a ‘fallow year’ to concentrate resources and secure the organisation’s long-term future amid funding pressures, with a full return planned for 2026.

For three decades, Burning the Clocks has been Brighton’s distinctive winter-solstice ritual: a lantern procession through the city centre, ending with a ceremonial burning on the beach and a fireworks finale. It began in the early 1990s as an alternative to the commercial Christmas and as a secular, inclusive community celebration ‘regardless of faith or creed’. Lanterns are traditionally made from willow (withies) and tissue paper, and the parade’s costumes and imagery revolve around time - often with clockfaces - while changing theme year by year to keep the symbolism fresh.

In recent years, the event has embraced an idea of ritual: months of workshops, schools and families building lanterns; a massed, volunteer-led procession; then the moment on the shingle when hundreds of handmade lights are surrendered to flame as the year turns. Same Sky describes the burn as a collective letting-go - people investing lanterns with hopes, wishes and fears before passing them into the bonfire. 

The modern run of Burning the Clocks has also been shaped by disruption. Severe winter weather forced a cancellation in 2009, and the festival later lost two consecutive years to the pandemic era; in 2021, organisers cancelled again as the Omicron wave accelerated and national restrictions tightened. The returns that followed carried an added charge: the same streets and seafront route, but with an obvious emphasis on reconnection and participation after enforced gaps. 

Themes have become the event’s way of threading topical meaning into the fixed solstice format. In 2021, the announced theme was ‘All Animals’, inviting reflection on shared life and the time spent apart - though the parade itself was ultimately called off that year. In 2023, publicity around the event highlighted ‘Clocks’ explicitly as the organising motif, aligning the lantern-build with timekeeping imagery. In 2024, organisers announced ‘Voyager’, framing the procession around journeys and the city’s welcome to people on their own voyages, while keeping the traditional solstice structure. 

This year’s cancellation is different in tone: not a safety call made days ahead, but a planned pause. Same Sky is still marking the date with a public display in central Brighton today: a large lantern sculpture designed and built by associate artist Nikki Gunson. The organisation has already commissioned the 2026 effigy and named the theme ‘Magicada’, using the cicada idea - rest followed by a loud re-emergence - as a metaphor for the event’s return.

See Visit Brighton and Crowdfunder for pics.

Neighbour of the wave

Winter on the Sussex coast has long been associated with health, sea air and bracing walks along the shore. When Brighton was consolidating its reputation as a fashionable watering place in the early nineteenth century, those qualities were already being recorded in print. In 1809 Mary Lloyd published Brighton: A Poem, Descriptive of the Place and Parts Adjacent, an extended verse account of the town that set out to capture its setting, its visitors and its daily rhythms.

Little is known about Lloyd herself. The book appears to be her only published volume. It was issued by subscription rather than through a commercial publisher, a common Georgian practice that secured sales in advance and reduced financial risk. The volume runs to eighty-eight pages and includes a substantial list of subscribers, among them the Duke of Clarence and Mrs Fitzherbert, alongside military officers and members of Brighton society. The book was sold in London and locally, and its subscription list indicates a readership closely connected to the resort and its seasonal life.

The volume is more than a single poem. Alongside the long descriptive piece are miscellaneous shorter poems, including several written in Scottish dialect, suggesting personal connections beyond Sussex. The book is illustrated with two engraved plates: a frontispiece view looking west across Brighton, and a separate plate depicting the Royal Chain Pier (and a nameplate). These images anchor the poem in recognisable topography and align the work with the growing market for picturesque views of the town.

The title poem itself is written largely in rhyming couplets and adopts the voice of a strolling observer, moving between shore, cliff and town. Lloyd stated her intention was to delineate Brighton’s scenes at the seasons and hours when they appeared most striking, and the poem progresses from morning activity to evening calm. Fishermen, boats, bathers and promenaders populate the beach, while the sea provides both spectacle and sublimity. Contemporary reviewers were reserved about Lloyd’s poetic powers, but noted that her work excelled in accuracy of description and in capturing the characteristic features of the place.

The poem repeatedly returns to the meeting of land and water, where human activity gives way to the scale and movement of the sea. To close with Lloyd’s own words, here are unedited extracts describing Brighton’s shore and seaward outlook: (Sources: Googlebooks and Quaritch.

Brighton: A Poem

Extract 1 (opening)

‘BRIGHTON! thou loveliest neighbour of the wave,
Whose stately cliffs the rolling surges lave,
Where roseate health, amid the breezes play,
Whose gentle breathings cool the fervid ray
Of scorching summer; pleasing gay Retreat,
Beauty, and fashion’s ever favourite seat:
Where splendour lays its cumbrous pomp aside,
Content, in softer, simpler paths to glide;
Where in succession, various pastimes sport,
Where nature’s grand and simple beauties court,
Where every taste may find a charm to please,
If fond of the sublime; the surging seas
Their vast floods rolling on the sounding shores,
When the bold wind unfolds the billowy stores;
Will lift with solemn awe the wond’ring soul,
To Him! who bade those mighty waters roll.’

Extract 2 (early-morning shoreline and the beach)

‘How sweet the sea-girt shore to pace along,
What time the lark begins her matin song,
When the mild moon her regency declines,
And to the glorious sun the reign resigns;
While the blue waves rejoicing in the light,
Reflect the golden smiles that chase the night.’

Extract 3 (fishermen coming in)

‘How sweet to mark the vessels’ devious way,
Their white sails glittering in the morning ray;
What time the weary fisher ends his toil,
And homeward steers, exulting o’er the spoil:
See the bold youths, who snare the finny train,
Press every sail, and through the liquid plain,
Cheerly pursue their course, to gain the shore,
While joyous they survey their hard-earn’d store;
And ere the boat has clear’d the surging deep,
Advent’rous, in the waters see them leap,’

Not a whopper in sight

Walk Brighton Beach often enough and a pattern emerges: miles of shingle, a working sea, and yet almost no sign of shore anglers at any hour of the year. This absence is striking not because fishermen avoid crowds - they always have - but because even in winter, at night, or on raw, empty mornings when the beach belongs only to dogs and weather, rods remain rare. The explanation lies less in human activity than in the character of the beach itself: a steep, exposed shingle shelf fronting an open Channel, offering little reason for fish to linger close in, and even less incentive for anglers to wait unless conditions are exactly right.

Brighton’s shoreline is dominated by a steep shingle shelf with shifting sand and shingle underfoot. Unlike classic surf beaches where fish school close to a recognisable break, the seabed just offshore in Brighton rarely provides stable structure or cover. That makes it less attractive to fish in daylight or calm conditions, and unless predators find food close in they tend to stay further out. The water can also appear deceptively shallow near the pebbles, leading many casual observers to assume an absence, when in fact deeper water lies just a few casts out.

Another big factor is visibility and timing. Most species - bass, plaice, whiting and others known from Brighton’s coast - are more active at dawn, dusk and night, and on solunar and tidal patterns. Local reports also show that reports from social or public forums are sparse - not because nothing is caught, but because many sessions result in blanks or modest catches and aren’t widely shared online. Even when catches do happen, they’re often subtle flatfish or small bass in the fading light, not the dramatised hook-and-battle many pictures and social posts favour. 

Contrast this with more visible fishing marks in the area, such as Brighton Marina’s sea walls, where deeper water, structure and bait concentrations attract more anglers and more reported catches. Apps like Fishbrain show a steady tally of bass, plaice and mackerel from the marina compared with the main beach.

Progress on Madeira Terrace

According to a press release from Brighton and Hove City Council, structural testing has confirmed that much of the original cast iron from Madeira Terrace can be repaired and reused, strengthening the heritage-first approach to restoring the seafront landmark. This will be BrightonBeach365’s last (and very wet) report on the famed but troubled arches - see Likely delays to arches work and Madeira Terrace restoration - hurrah!.

Restoration work began on site in November 2024 and is one of the most technically complex engineering projects undertaken on the seafront. A central aim is to repair rather than replace as much of the historic fabric as possible, including the cast iron structure, retained soil and the terrace’s retaining wall, in order to preserve authenticity and limit environmental impact.

Earlier this year, sections of cast iron removed during the first phase of works were sent to a specialist foundry for testing. An initial round of tests proved inconclusive, requiring further analysis. The latest results now confirm that the original structural cast iron can be successfully repaired and reused. Although the testing programme took longer than planned, the outcome has been welcomed by both the council and the Seafront Development Board, the independent body advising on the wider revitalisation of the seafront.

The findings mean that much of the century-old cast iron can be reinstated during the opening phase of restoration. The environmental savings are substantial: producing new cast iron typically generates around eight tonnes of CO₂ per tonne, while repair is expected to produce less than an eighth of that. Across the full structure, the difference is equivalent to the annual carbon footprint of powering more than 2,000 UK homes.

Alongside the testing results, visible progress is now expected on site. The first sections of steelwork for a new fully accessible lift have arrived, forming part of a new route from Marine Parade down to Madeira Drive. Most of the lift steels are due to be delivered by Christmas, allowing residents to see the structure taking shape. The lift is intended to open as part of the first phase of restoration, improving access to the seafront and to businesses along Madeira Drive.

Councillor Jacob Taylor said the project required patience because of its technical complexity and the age of the structure, but emphasised that funders and the council were committed to restoring rather than replacing wherever possible. Lord Bassam, chair of the Seafront Development Board, said the confirmation that the cast iron could be reused was crucial and added that the arrival of the lift steels marked an important moment in building momentum on site.

The Waltzer’s yaw and whip

The Waltzer on Brighton Palace Pier belongs to the modern era of the pier’s ‘funfair at the end’ identity. That shift began after the Noble Organisation bought the pier in 1984 and, two years later, removed the old theatre, freeing the seaward end to fill with rides and amusement structures rather than staged variety.

A Waltzer is a classic British flat ride: cars sit on a rotating platform and spin as they run over an undulating track; the rider’s weight shifts and the ride’s motion combine to make each car yaw and whip. Operators traditionally add to the chaos by giving cars an extra shove as they pass. That basic mechanics-and-showmanship mix is why the Waltzer has stayed so closely tied to British and Irish fairground culture, even as safety rules and fixed-site queuing have changed how it is run.

The pier’s own ride page bills the Waltzer as a ‘true fairground classic’, warns that ‘this ride spins’ and you should be ‘ready to get dizzy’, and sets the published height rules: 1.2m to ride, and 1.4m to ride unaccompanied (with riders between those heights needing a ‘responsible adult’ who also has a ticket). The same page lists the practicalities that shape the ride experience on a busy, windy pier: no loose items, hats and scarves off, phones forbidden, and closure possible in adverse weather.

As for this specific machine, ride databases record the current installation as an A.R.M.-built Waltzer that was ‘new to the pier’ in 1991, replacing an earlier Waltzer listing. These photos underline why it works so well in a compact pier-head funfair: the canopy’s stars-and-moons, the bulb runs, and the big lettering do half the job before the motors even start.

A.R.M. is usually expanded as ‘Amusement Refurbishment & Manufacture’, and the company is recorded as having previously traded from Oxford, after earlier trading as ‘Turnagain’. That lineage places Brighton’s Waltzer in a very particular strand of late-20th-century British ride-building: firms that didn’t just import new concepts, but modernised, rebuilt and re-engineered established crowd-pleasers. An example survives in an archive note on Turnagain/ARM’s work manufacturing the Trabant ride from the late 1970s, describing an Oxford-based engineering outfit producing updated machines and iterating designs for greater visual impact. Brighton’s 1991 Waltzer sits neatly in that same world: a classic form, built for heavy use, engineered to be maintained, and designed to shout ‘fairground’ in lights

Public feedback on the pier’s Waltzer tends to cluster around three themes: intensity, operator-led ‘extra spin’, and nostalgia. The pier promotional text urges visitors to ‘be daring’ and ‘scream to go faster’. In visitor reviews of Brighton Palace Pier, the Waltzer is regularly singled out as the ride people go on to feel properly flung about, the one that still delivers that unpredictable, stomach-lurching swing between laughter and mild panic. And on nostalgia threads and comments, ‘the fastest waltzer’ is often the hook people use when they talk about Brighton’s seafront amusements and the rites-of-passage of teenage summers.

Waltzers also remain a staple beyond Brighton in static seaside parks (not just travelling fairs), which is one reason the ride reads as ‘traditional’ even when the machine itself is relatively modern. Dreamland in Margate keeps a Waltzer as part of its retro mix. Skegness Pleasure Beach lists ‘Waltzer’ among its core line-up. Clarence Pier in Southsea is another long-running seaside setting where a Waltzer is treated as part of the expected soundtrack of lights, music and spin.

Sources include Wikipedia, the Fairground Heritage Trust, and Dreamland. 

Austen’s unseen Brighton

Today marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen, the great chronicler of English places and manners. One of her books above all - Pride and Prejudice - has a direct and consequential link to Brighton and its beach, even though they are never once described.

The novel, first published in 1813, centres on the Bennet family, a middle-class household with five unmarried daughters and a precarious financial future. The story follows the growing relationship between Elizabeth Bennet, the second eldest daughter, and Fitzwilliam Darcy, a wealthy landowner whose pride and reserve initially offend her. Alongside this central courtship runs a series of secondary plots involving reputation, marriage, and social judgement.

One of these concerns Lydia Bennet, the youngest sister, who is impulsive, flirtatious, and largely uncontrolled by her parents. When a militia regiment is stationed near the Bennet home in Hertfordshire, Lydia becomes infatuated with the officers. Among them is George Wickham, a charming but unprincipled soldier who forms a brief attachment to Elizabeth before revealing himself to be unreliable and deeply in debt. Wickham later transfers with the regiment to Brighton, then a fashionable seaside and military town.

Lydia is allowed to accompany the wife of the regiment’s commanding officer to Brighton for the summer. There, free from family restraint, she renews her acquaintance with Wickham. The two run away together, first to London, with no intention of marrying. Their disappearance threatens to disgrace not only Lydia but the entire Bennet family, whose daughters’ chances of respectable marriage depend on female reputation.

The crisis is resolved only through the private intervention of Fitzwilliam Darcy, who tracks the couple down, pays Wickham’s debts, and secures a marriage settlement. The family is saved from public scandal, but the damage narrowly avoided leaves a lasting impression. Reflecting on events, Elizabeth Bennet later observes that ‘Had Lydia never been at Brighton, she had never met Wickham.’

It is at this point that Brighton’s peculiar role in the novel becomes clear. Although it is named repeatedly, Austen never describes the town itself. There is no account of the beach, the sea, the buildings, or the daily life of the resort. Brighton exists entirely as a place of reputation rather than observation, a setting defined by what it permits rather than what it looks like.

For Austen’s contemporary readers, that would have been enough. By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Brighton was already firmly established as a fashionable seaside resort and military centre, associated with sociability, display, and a loosening of ordinary moral restraints. To send Lydia there is to remove her from domestic supervision and place her in a setting where temptation lurks. Austen needs only to name Brighton for its implications to be understood.

This reticence is striking because Austen was perfectly capable of writing about the seaside when she wished. In Persuasion, Lyme Regis is vividly rendered, its Cobb forming the setting for a pivotal accident. In Sanditon, her unfinished final novel, she turns her attention to a speculative seaside resort, analysing promenades, bathing machines, health claims, and commercial optimism. These places are described and judged. Brighton is not.

Biographies say there is no firm evidence that Jane Austen ever visited Brighton. Her surviving letters place her instead at coastal towns such as Lyme Regis, Sidmouth, Dawlish, and Worthing, where she stayed for several months in 1805-1806. Worthing, a quieter and less conspicuous rival to Brighton, appears in her correspondence as a place of walks, mild society, illness, and boredom - the kind of lived experience she habitually transformed into fiction. Brighton remained known to her largely by reputation.

That reputation was sufficient. In Pride and Prejudice, Brighton functions not as landscape but as catalyst. It is the place where supervision weakens and consequences begin. Austen’s refusal to describe the beach or the town turns Brighton into an abstract moral space rather than a physical one.

Sources include Project Gutenberg, Brighton Museums, Jane Austen - A Life by Claire Tomalin and Wikipedia. The imagined book cover above was created by ChatGPT.