Why is Brighton Interesting?

On culture, piers, and North Laine

We launch our new Friday travel series with Matt Locke of Storythings on the charms of Brighton, UK. Enjoy and let us know what you think about the new feature. -Colin (CJN)

Matt here. A few years back, when I was still on Twitter, I saw an article that claimed to have found the most hipster city in the world. I clicked the link, thinking I’d be mildly annoyed if my home city, Brighton, wasn’t on the list. The article rated cities by the ratio of hipster staples - indie coffee shops, tattoo parlours, vinyl stores, etc - per person, and I was mildly embarrassed to discover we’d come first.

So that’s the first thing you need to know about Brighton. If you look at a political map of the south of England, it’s all Conservative blue, apart from one tiny dot at the bottom that is a sandwich of two (red) Labour MPs with a filling of the only Green MP in all of the UK. We’re a tiny island of progressive culture, and despite that being reason enough for the haters, I love it. I wouldn’t live anywhere else.

The city has long had an alternative, arty, seedy reputation. It’s just over an hour from London, and has been a bolt-hole for anyone trying to get away, or get away with something, since Prince George built a ludicrous Pavilion for his mistress in the 18th Century. Underneath the Pavilion is an underground tunnel so that the increasingly obese George could get to his horse and carriage without being ridiculed by the people of Brighton. Somehow, that story seems to capture everything about the city and its healthy disregard for authority.

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Like all seaside cities, it’s longer than it is tall, squashed down between the coast to the south and the beautiful South Downs national park to the North. Most visitors only visit the narrow strip between the two piers, a short walk from the train station. To the east, the Palace Pier is a working attraction with vertiginous fairground rides, ghost trains, amusement arcades and fish and chips. To the West is the stark and strangely beautiful remains of the old West Pier, burnt to an iron skeleton by a mysterious fire in 2003.

The main tourist traps in the city are on the direct road from the train station to the beach, passing through the clock tower and West St - a desert of dodgy bars, restaurants and clubs that no Brighton native would ever be seen in - and then in the immediate beach areas spreading out to the two piers. If you come this way, pass through West St as quickly as you can and find a few of the decent restaurants on the beach - Riddle and Finns, Shelter Hall or, if you’re a member, the new Soho Brighton Beach House.

If you get past the West Pier and beyond, you’re in Hove, which used to be full of retired couples, but in the last few decades has become the place where you move when you start to have kids - think of it as Brighton’s Prospect Park. As the demographic changed, so have the shops and restaurants. My favourite Brighton spot is Murmur, right next to the West Pier, or The Salt Room, part of a mini-chain that includes the excellent Burnt Orange and The Coal Shed.

The best shopping spots are not in the monolithic Churchill Square, but in the two areas called The Laines and North Laine. The Laines are a maze of twisty streets combining old-school jewelers with pop-up art stores and high fashion. Nearer the station is North Laine, where you’ll find Resident, the best record store in Brighton (and possibly the UK) and the now-ubiquitous gen Z dungaree shop Lucy & Yak.

As you’d expect in a city filled with wannabe artists, there’s a thriving cultural scene in the city, but it’s not centered around a single location or venue. Instead it’s defined by the many festivals and events the city hosts throughout the year. The main one is the Brighton Festival every May, with its sister Fringe event and Artists’ Open Houses. Then there’s Brighton Pride - the biggest in the UK - in August, and the excellent Great Escape, the UK record industry’s version of SXSW, with loads of industry panels and over 500 emerging artists playing in venues across the city.

Actually, the festivals are a good example of the third and final thing you need to know about Brighton. This is not a city that builds museums or monoliths to honour the great and the good. We’d rather throw a party, and wake up with a hangover on the beach, as the tide washes over the stones and wipes us all clean, ready to party again the next day. (ML)

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Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Matt (ML)

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