Bawden’s Palace Pier

Edward Bawden’s linocut of ‘Brighton Pier’, first printed in 1958, has become one of the most widely recognised artistic images of the city, fixing its iron structure, domes and sea-edge setting in a form that feels both modern and timeless. It is also my favourite image of the pier, and, after this year of daily articles for BrightonBeach365, I’ve browsed a lot of them!

Bawden approached the Palace Pier not as a picturesque subject but as a feat of design. The linocut pares the structure down to interlocking systems of line, pattern and repetition: the under-pier lattice reads like a piece of industrial ornament, while the deck, lamps and flags advance in disciplined rhythm towards the horizon. The sea itself is reduced to parallel marks, resisting any hint of naturalistic drama. 

Around the pier, Bawden crowds in domes and façades that recall the Royal Pavilion and the dense theatricality of Brighton’s seafront. The result is not a view so much as a diagram of pleasure architecture, in which Victorian engineering and Regency fantasy are fused into a single graphic statement. That same year it was first published, the print (very large, about 1.5 meters wide) won first prize in the Giles Bequest, confirming both the technical assurance of the image and the growing acceptance of linocut as a serious artistic medium.

That confidence had been hard won. Born in Braintree, Essex, in 1903, Bawden trained at Cambridge School of Art before studying at the Royal College of Art, where he formed a lasting friendship with Eric Ravilious and absorbed Paul Nash’s encouragement to look closely at the structures and textures of the everyday world. Linocut appealed to him precisely because it resisted softness. Working directly into the lino forced decisions, and Bawden exploited this by combining bold outlines with intricate internal detail, often enriching the surface with hand-colouring or subtle tonal variation. By the time he turned to Brighton, he had already established himself as a designer and illustrator of rare versatility, producing book illustrations, posters, wallpapers, murals and ceramics alongside his prints.

Brighton fits naturally into Bawden’s long-standing fascination with buildings and engineered landscapes. Although he never lived in the city, the south coast featured intermittently in his work, and the pier image sits comfortably alongside his prints of Kew Gardens, Westminster, London streets and continental cities, all treated as systems of form rather than romantic scenes. He did make other seaside and coastal images, though not of Brighton Beach. His war-time and post-war work includes coastal architecture and harbour settings, and his illustrations frequently return to the visual language of promenades, railings and marine structures.

After the Second World War, in which he served as an official war artist in North Africa and the Middle East, Bawden settled in Great Bardfield, becoming a central figure in the group of artists who opened their studios to the public and helped redefine the relationship between modern art and everyday life in Britain. Later, in Saffron Walden, he continued to work with undiminished precision and wit until his death in 1989.

More than half a century on, the print still shapes how Brighton is imagined. It strips the city back to its essential structures while quietly celebrating their extravagance. In doing so, it also encapsulates Bawden’s achievement: an art rooted in observation and design, capable of turning a stretch of beach and a mass of ironwork into an enduring emblem of place.

The image above is copied from from the Jerwood Collection. It lists the linocut print as ‘BRIGHTON PIER, 1958 (SIGNED 1961)’, ‘from the first edition of 40 impressions’, and ©The Estate of Edward Bawden. Other sources include Wikipedia, Goldmark, and Art UK.

In memory of Daddy Long-legs

When it opened in the winter of 1896, Brighton’s most improbable railway was not yet universally known as the Daddy Long-legs. Its promoters preferred Volk’s Electric Sea Car - a name that stressed novelty and maritime glamour rather than the prosaic fact that it ran on rails. Formally incorporated as the Brighton and Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway, it took only weeks for the public to supply a nickname that proved impossible to dislodge.

The line was the creation of Magnus Volk, already established with his electric railway along Brighton’s seafront (see this blog’s very first article - Whistle, hoot, whistle). Extending that system eastwards on land meant costly engineering through unstable cliffs. Volk’s solution was to avoid the cliffs altogether by placing the railway in the sea. Between 1894 and 1896, standard-gauge track was laid directly onto the seabed, fixed to concrete sleepers drilled into the chalk in the shallows between Brighton and Rottingdean.

The single passenger vehicle - officially named Pioneer - was neither boat nor tram but an uneasy hybrid. A large saloon carriage sat high above the water on four long steel legs, each mounted on a wheeled bogie that followed the submerged rails. Electric power was supplied by overhead wires mounted on poles set into the seabed, an arrangement that worked tolerably in calm conditions and poorly in rough seas. Because it operated offshore, the Sea Car was treated partly as a vessel and was required to carry maritime safety equipment and a qualified sea captain on board.

The railway opened to the public on 28 November 1896, making this winter the 129th anniversary of its launch. Its debut was dramatic and inauspicious. Within days, a severe storm capsized the carriage. Volk rebuilt it with longer legs and raised electrical gear, and services resumed in 1897. For a short time, the Sea Car functioned as intended, carrying thousands of passengers on what was marketed as a ‘sea voyage on wheels’.

The English Channel, however, proved an unforgiving environment for fixed infrastructure. Tides, wave action and shifting shingle scoured around the track supports, while new groynes and coastal works altered sediment movement along the bay. Maintenance became constant and costly. Plans to divert the route further offshore to avoid new sea defences proved financially impossible, and by 1901 the railway was dismantled and abandoned.

What survives today is not rail but footprint. The metalwork was removed for scrap, but the concrete sleepers and seabed fixings were left in place. These remains are normally buried beneath sand and shingle. Only on exceptionally low spring tides, often in winter and only for a brief window around slack water, can parts of the alignment sometimes be made out as a faint, ruler-straight line beneath the surface east of the Palace Pier.

Seen then, the Daddy Long-legs ceases to be a cartoonish curiosity and becomes something more exacting: a measurable line in the landscape, briefly legible, marking the moment when Brighton attempted to extend its electric railway not along the shore - but straight through the sea.

Sources: National Railway Museum, Volks Electric Railway Association and My Brighton and Hove. The top image is courtesy of Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove, and the other two can be found at Wikipedia.

Sky Surge thrills

Have you tried Sky Surge yet? It opened on Brighton Palace Pier last summer as one of the most visually assertive new rides to arrive at the pier end in recent years, its long bench of seats swinging riders high above the deck with sudden drops and rolling spins against an open sea backdrop. Installed during the peak season and promoted heavily on social media, the ride marked a clear statement of intent by the pier’s operators to refresh the thrill offer with a contemporary, continental-style flat ride that photographs well and signals novelty.

The ride was teased publicly in early July 2025, when a short night-time video showed large components being craned through the pier entrance and transported along the deck to the seaward end. The pier described the arrival only as ‘something exciting’, inviting speculation before confirming later in the summer that Sky Surge would open as a headline attraction for the 2025 season. By mid-August it was operating daily and featured prominently in pier publicity as ‘our new ride for 2025’.

Sky Surge is a modern ‘Miami’ ride, a format developed in continental Europe in which a long gondola of outward-facing seats is mounted on a rotating arm. The arm lifts the gondola through steep angles while the seating assembly spins independently, creating a combination of lateral swing, rotation and brief weightless moments. On Brighton Palace Pier the ride is presented with a brightly coloured cityscape backdrop and LED lighting designed for both daytime impact and night-time visibility.

Although the pier has not formally named the manufacturer in its own publicity, the ride has been identified by fairground and coaster enthusiasts as an SBF Visa Group Miami, a fixed-site version of a model widely used in European parks and seaside resorts. The configuration, restraint system and motion profile match SBF’s Miami design, and the Brighton installation appears to be a park model rather than a travelling fair version.

Operational details published by the pier list a minimum height of 1.2 metres, with riders under 1.4 metres required to be accompanied by an adult. Standard health and safety exclusions apply, including restrictions relating to back, neck and heart conditions. The ride is priced at £5 per go and is included within the pier’s unlimited ride wristbands.

Public reaction on social media was largely positive, with commenters welcoming visible investment at the pier end and praising the ride’s scale and movement. Others focused on the logistics of installation on a narrow, historic structure, noting the complexity of bringing large ride components onto the pier deck and assembling them in situ. Trade coverage also highlighted the use of cranes and partial roof lifting during the delivery process.

Rides of the same Miami type can be found elsewhere in the UK and overseas. Notable examples include Mamba Strike at Chessington World of Adventures and Surf’s Up at Alexandra Gardens in Weymouth, both identified as SBF Visa Group Miamis, as well as similar installations at Steel Pier in Atlantic City and in amusement parks across Europe, North America and Australasia.

Latest on the King Alfred

After two BrightonBeach365 stories this year charting King Alfred Leisure Centre’s long journey from feasible idea to firm scheme - first in January as the council appointed a delivery partner and cabinet backed the principle of replacement, and then in September when detailed £65 million plans and a preferred contractor were unveiled - the council’s latest update on the project offers a strikingly different tone.

Where previous announcements focused on vision, design and appointments, the most recent release is unmistakably about keeping the project on track against a backdrop of public scrutiny - see Brighton and Hove News. The council has turned explicitly to clarifying what is and isn’t happening on the ground, amid rumours and social-media disputes about demolition having already begun and about the site’s future. That alone is a sign of how high-profile this project has become locally: residents are engaging closely with the plans, offering feedback on facility mixes, and some groups have even sought to block progress through attempts to list the 1939 building. 

The practical works now underway - asbestos removal and the clearing of interiors - are not glamorous, but they signal the real beginning of physical change on site. And now the council has taken the unusual step of addressing misinformation and calling out hostile behaviour toward workers. Indeed in the press release Councillor Alan Robins, Cabinet Member for Sports and Recreation, is quoted as saying: ‘While most residents are sharing their views through appropriate channels, there are a small minority spreading misinformation and creating a hostile environment for people doing their jobs. I want to make it clear, abuse or harassment of staff and contractors working on any of our projects will not be tolerated. Everyone on site is doing their job to keep the project moving forward safely and efficiently, and they deserve respect.’

For local users of the pools and halls who have endured decades of talk but little action, the situation is clear: the old King Alfred will continue in everyday use through winter, even as the beginnings of its successor take shape behind closed doors; formal demolition still awaits planning permission. Consultation feedback will continue to shape the final layouts and facilities, with another round of formal opportunity for comment expected when the planning application is lodged in early 2026.

Brighton’s Xmas swim

Hundreds of people took part in the traditional Brighton Christmas Day swim this morning, braving the weather, the shingle beach and a brisk sea. Participants, many wearing Santa hats or other festive gear, gathered on the beach from mid-morning as anticipation built. At 11 am the excitement peaked, with shouts of pain and delight as swimmers charged into the sea - around 11°C - before dashing back out almost as quickly!

Brighton and Hove City Council had issued strong safety warnings ahead of the swim, stressing that people should exercise extreme caution if they chose to enter the water. Officers advised checking weather and sea conditions and highlighted the risks of cold water, strong currents and the steep shingle slope on Brighton’s beaches (which can make entry and exit awkward). The council’s guidance stressed that only very experienced swimmers with suitable equipment should consider entering the sea, and it warned there would be no lifeguard cover at this time of year. Nevertheless, there was some lifeguard presence. 

The Brighton Christmas Day swim is an informal tradition with deep local roots. It forms part of a wider pattern of festive sea dips around the UK. Community swims in Brighton have been noted since at least the late 19th century and have usually taken place on Christmas morning at around 11 a.m., even without formal organisation. There are many other such festive swims across the country, but this year several in the West Country have been cancelled due to weather conditions - see the BBC.

Fallen stars in disguise?

Some 125 years ago, buskers were a familiar and thriving presence on Brighton’s seafront. Their popularity was such that The Era - a long-running theatrical weekly founded in 1838 - felt moved to puncture a persistent myth: that the musicians and singers scattered along the promenade were fallen stars in disguise, disgraced actors, or even incognito aristocrats turning a penny between scandals. On 1 September 1900, the paper published a faintly sardonic survey of seaside performers under the headline ‘Buskers on Brighton Beach’, written by a ‘special correspondent’.

‘Quite an interesting fallacy exists in the mind of the casual holiday maker,’ the writer begins, ‘as to the identity of many of the performers at the seaside, on sands and beach’. Brighton, like Margate and other resorts, was awash with rumours of ‘Mysterious Musicians’ and ‘Promenade Prowlers’, supposedly hiding ruined careers beneath false beards and cheap costumes. The correspondent treats this with amused scepticism, mocking the idea that royalty might secretly be busking ‘to meet the demands of uxorious creditors’.

The article’s first task is to insist that busking itself is not disreputable. On the contrary, it is presented as honest labour, particularly for performers between engagements: ‘There is nothing discreditable in “busking”, and when out of a shop we see no reason why an actor, if he thinks fit, should not turn his singing or reciting talents to account until the tide turns.’

But this defence is immediately followed by deflation. The correspondent claims that most stories of famous actors ‘buskerading’ on the beach belong ‘chiefly to the region of fiction’. Having taken the trouble to observe performers on the Brighton front, the writer reports that, with one or two exceptions, they were not fallen professionals at all but lifelong street entertainers, ‘to the manner born, and had been street entertainers since childhood’.

What follows is a brisk, sometimes sharp-eyed catalogue of Brighton’s beach entertainments at the turn of the century. Originality, the correspondent complains, is scarce. Music-hall songs dominate, endlessly recycled for undemanding holiday crowds. Even variety, once sampled, soon palls.

Yet Brighton still stands out. Among the many acts observed ‘down at London-on-Sea’, it is Brighton’s Pierrot band that earns unqualified praise: ‘At Brighton the Pierrot band is far and away the best, the selection and the execution being above the average.’

The Pierrots - already an established Brighton fixture by 1900 - represent, here, the high-water mark of beach performance: disciplined, musically competent, and recognisably professional. Other named troupes fare less well, dismissed as ‘customary’, misnamed, or only intermittently entertaining. Ballad singers are ‘most plentiful’, leaning heavily on the popular composers of the day - Tosti, Molloy, Maybrick - while jugglers are ‘scarce’.

The most striking passages are reserved for the marginal figures of beach performance: blind musicians, paralysed instrumentalists, labouring hard for meagre rewards. Their presence reminds the reader that the beach economy was not merely comic or picturesque, but precarious and often harsh. Alongside them, older forms of popular entertainment persist: Punch and Judy drawing ‘crowds of willing customers’, marionettes and fantoccini keeping pace with what a wag calls ‘the origin of the drama’.

The conclusion is deliberately sour. Whether through genuine decline or the jaundiced eye of the observer, the correspondent finds Brighton’s beach entertainments wanting: ‘On the whole, however, the beach entertainments are deteriorating; they are not what they were, or else we are not.’

Conversation with performers yields little insight. Questions are suspected of being veiled appeals for money. And the final judgement is blunt: ‘real “buskers” seem to be dying out, and, perhaps, ’tis well’.

Sources: Editions of The Era can be accessed online via the British Newspaper Archive and Internet Archive. The photograph above - dating from the summer of 1899 - is courtesy of Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove. See also Busking on the seafront - yes please and The Punch and Judy tradition.

Holocene peat and piddocks

Found on the beach: Holocene peat and piddocks. After winter storms, Brighton Beach occasionally reveals dark, rounded lumps scattered among the flint shingle. At first glance they resemble stone, but they break easily in the hand and crumble rather than fracture. They are not rock. They are fragments of Holocene peat, washed ashore from submerged deposits offshore.

These pieces are part of a prehistoric landscape that once lay above sea level. Between about 6,000 and 8,000 years ago, rising post-glacial sea levels flooded low-lying woodland and peat bogs across what is now the English Channel. Waterlogged, oxygen-poor conditions preserved the compressed remains of trees, roots and plant matter. Those peat beds still lie buried beneath sand and gravel offshore.

Strong seas periodically erode these deposits and release fragments, which are rolled smooth by waves before appearing on the beach. When dry, the peat is light and brittle; when wet, it is dense, dark brown to almost black, and easily mistaken for stone.

This fragment found on Brighton Beach shows a second stage in its history. One face is densely perforated by rounded holes of varying sizes. These are piddock borings, made by marine bivalves such as Pholas and Barnea. Piddocks rasp into soft substrates - chalk, clay and peat - to create permanent shelter. They cannot bore into flint or hard rock, which is why such holes appear only in the peat and not in the surrounding shingle.

The presence of these borings shows that the peat fragment lay exposed on the seabed for a prolonged period before being torn free and washed ashore. Most peat fragments lose this evidence through abrasion; only a few retain a clearly bored surface.

Together, the peat and the piddock holes record two deep timescales at once: the slow drowning of prehistoric land as sea levels rose, and the later colonisation of that drowned landscape by marine life. What reaches the beach is not just debris, but a small, durable remnant of Brighton’s submerged past.