Brighton in Winter: Piers and Pavilion

The first thing Brighton ever said to me was written in chalk. The Queen's Head. Welcome to Brighton. Have your first drink here with us. It was ten to three on a November afternoon, the pavement was still wet from the last shower, and a pub had propped a personal greeting against its doorway as if it had been expecting me.

Brighton and I only ever met in winter, in the margins of the day: mornings before anything opened, evenings after everything that mattered was done. November handed me Christmas lights and pub fires. January handed me storm light and a staircase I am still thinking about. It turns out the margins are a perfectly good way to learn a seaside town, because winter is when a seaside town is most itself.

A chalkboard by way of hello

That first hour set the tone for everything November gave me. Within ten minutes of the chalkboard I passed a polished silver Airstream trailer parked outside a shopping center with Greek Traditional Gyros-Pita painted across the top in blue letters doing their best impression of ancient Greek. Four minutes after that, a doorway in a grand stone facade with a familiar yellow logo above it: Mikel, a coffee chain I know from home.

I had been in Brighton for less than an hour and it had already offered me a drink, a gyros and a Greek coffee. As welcomes go, Thessaloniki could hardly have done more.

A chalkboard outside a red Victorian pub reading The Queen's Head, Welcome to Brighton, have your first drink here with us, with picnic benches and hanging baskets along the wet pavement — Ten to three. A pub making the offer, then a gyros van and a Greek coffee chain inside the next quarter hour. The town was speaking my language before I had unpacked.

A polished silver Airstream food trailer with Greek Traditional Gyros-Pita painted on the front, parked on a paved square outside a shopping center — Ten to three. A pub making the offer, then a gyros van and a Greek coffee chain inside the next quarter hour. The town was speaking my language before I had unpacked.

I dropped my bag near Preston Street, one of those streets of launderettes and cocktail bars that runs straight downhill at the sea, and got my first proper look at Brighton's strangest landmark: a slim silver pole rising out of the seafront, far taller than anything around it, with a glass doughnut of a pod partway up. The i360 observation tower looks like a mast that lost its ship. From the top of Preston Street it stands framed between the rooftops, with strings of seafront lights curving away at the edge of the frame, and it fits the town surprisingly well, because Brighton has never once been embarrassed by anything.

The slim pole of the i360 observation tower rising above Preston Street rooftops, with a launderette and a cocktail bar sign in the foreground and strings of lights at the edge of the frame — Between the launderette and the cocktail bar, the strangest thing on the seafront gets framed like a postcard.

By quarter past three the sun was already low over the water. That is the deal with an English seaside town in November: you get about eight usable hours of light and the town spends them all at once. From my hotel window the sea went silver, the sun slid down behind a dark residential tower, and the last light picked out the paddling pool and the wet tarmac below like someone running a highlighter over the street.

View from a hotel window at dusk, the low sun dropping toward the sea beside a dark residential tower, with a cream Regency building in the foreground and wet streets catching the light below — Quarter past three, from the hotel window. November on the Channel serves its sunsets early and in full.

Handpumps and a sugar skull

Evenings were for pubs, and Brighton takes its pubs seriously in a way I recognized from Dublin, though the accent here is different: less stout, more cask ale, and everything served through those tall wooden handpumps that look like they were engineered for a steam railway.

The first one I settled into had Spitfire and Bishops Finger on the pumps, both Kentish ales, and a bar rail with Britain's Oldest Brewer since 1698 carved along it. I never caught the pub's own name, which feels appropriate, because what I remember is the rail, the rows of gin bottles in the mirror, and the unhurried temperature of the room. Later that evening, on the way to somewhere else entirely, I walked past a wall painted flamingo pink with a giant Day of the Dead sugar skull on it, black and red and blue, grinning at nobody. Brighton does this constantly. You are never more than two streets from a small piece of theater.

Two wooden handpumps on a pub bar with Spitfire and Bishops Finger clips, the bar rail below engraved Britain's Oldest Brewer since 1698, bottles glowing on the back bar — That evening. Kentish ale under a rail claiming three centuries of practice, and a sugar skull keeping watch over a pink wall on the way home.

A large Day of the Dead sugar skull painted in black, red and blue filigree on a flamingo pink wall — That evening. Kentish ale under a rail claiming three centuries of practice, and a sugar skull keeping watch over a pink wall on the way home.

Properly rained on

One morning opened with the kind of rain that makes a seafront honest. From a wet terrace on Little Preston Street the i360's pod wore a ring of red light like a crown, the Victorian corner building beside it had gone almost black with water, and out along the shore the domed roof of the old bandstand stood against a sea the same color as the sky. Nobody was performing at being a holiday town that morning. I liked it enormously.

The i360 tower in heavy rain seen from a wet terrace, its pod ringed with red light, beside a dark green Victorian corner building marked Little Preston Street, the sea gray beyond — 8:37, properly raining. The pod wearing its red crown, and the town making no effort to charm anyone. It charmed me.

The rain earned the evening. Dinner was pizza from a wood-fired oven, and I want to describe these two honestly rather than grandly: one came white and golden, no tomato, with torn creamy cheese, folds of ham and basil leaves over a blistered, leopard-spotted crust; the other was tomato and mozzarella under cupped little discs of spiced sausage that had gone crisp and pooled their oil, with the odd charred basil leaf. The red paper menu on the table said Christmas. Both pizzas disappeared at a speed I am not proud of.

A wood-fired white pizza with a golden base, torn creamy cheese, folds of ham and fresh basil leaves, its puffed crust charred in spots — Ten to eight. One white with ham and basil, one red with crisped sausage cups. The menu on the table already said Christmas.

A wood-fired pizza with tomato, melted mozzarella and crisp cupped slices of spiced sausage, a charred basil leaf in the middle — Ten to eight. One white with ham and basil, one red with crisped sausage cups. The menu on the table already said Christmas.

Then the pubs, in sequence, the way an evening should escalate. The first had Doom Bar and Abbot on the handpumps and try before you buy price tags clipped to the fonts, which is the most trusting retail model I know. Its back bar was the real exhibit: an etched Victorian mirror with a crowned monogram in gilt, two brass bells hanging over the gin shelf, and a galleried upper floor reflected behind it all. Nobody could tell me what the monogram stood for, and I decided I preferred not knowing.

Doom Bar and Greene King Abbot handpumps on a pub bar, each with a small try before you buy price sign clipped beneath — Stop one: Doom Bar and Abbot, try before you buy, and a monogrammed mirror that predates everyone's questions about it.

An ornate etched back bar mirror with a gilt crowned monogram, brass bells mounted beside it and rows of gin bottles below, a galleried upper floor reflected in the glass — Stop one: Doom Bar and Abbot, try before you buy, and a monogrammed mirror that predates everyone's questions about it.

The Lion & Lobster

The night ended at a pub called The Lion & Lobster, and I know that because a painted banner over the dartboard said Lion & Lobster Food Fayre, in the sort of fairground lettering that has never once been redesigned. This is my favorite kind of pub: a warren of dark red rooms where every surface has been claimed by something. The dartboard sat between two chalk scoreboards under the banner. The back bar had disappeared entirely beneath decades of pump clips, pinned edge to edge like butterflies, with a rhubarb and strawberry cider on one of the handpumps as proof the collection is still growing. A chalkboard under the dartboard promised they were here to cater your festive needs, and by half past ten I could confirm it.

When I finally left, close to eleven, the pub glowed from its corner like a stove: three stories of deep red, bow windows lit from inside, hanging baskets over the door. I took one photograph and walked to the seafront instead of to bed.

A dartboard between two chalk scoreboards on a dark pub wall, beneath a painted banner reading Lion and Lobster Food Fayre and an illuminated Today's Specials sign — The Lion & Lobster, from the food fayre banner to the last red corner of the night. The pump clips go back further than the dart scores.

A pub back bar covered edge to edge in old beer pump clips, with hanging spirit optics and a rhubarb and strawberry cider clip on a handpump in front — The Lion & Lobster, from the food fayre banner to the last red corner of the night. The pump clips go back further than the dart scores.

The walk home delivered one of the two or three best sights of the whole trip. The Victorian bandstand on the seafront, an ornate little pavilion of cream ironwork and green columns, stood fully lit against a completely black sea, like a jewelry box someone forgot to close. Quarter to eleven, nobody around, the lights of ships or of the coast somewhere far off behind it. I stood on the empty coast road for a while and let it be ridiculous and perfect.

The ornate Victorian seafront bandstand lit up at night, cream ironwork and green columns under a dark dome, against a black sea and sky — Quarter to eleven on the coast road. The bandstand glowing like a jewelry box with the sea switched off behind it.

Twenty-seven seconds

Another morning at the same hour paid for that rain. I came down to the seafront at 8:37 into hard low sunlight and took four photographs in twenty-seven seconds, just turning in a circle, because everything in every direction was worth keeping.

Out in the water, the skeleton of the West Pier: a rusted lace of columns and arches standing offshore where the pier burned and the sea kept the frame. At my feet, a huge ground mural in blues and pinks by the artist Lois O'Hara, her name signed in a corner, with find joy in the small things written into the paint. Behind me, a seafront house built upside down, balancing on its own roof ridge, teal and green against the blue morning. And beside it the i360 again, its ticket hall done up like a Victorian pier entrance with tickets over the arches, the low sun throwing lamp post shadows across the empty square. Also a wet green shelter, a bench, and puddles doing excellent impressions of the ornate lamps above them.

The rusted skeleton of the West Pier standing in a calm sea under blue sky, with a colorful ground mural signed Lois O'Hara reading find joy in the small things on the promenade in front — 8:37. All four of these inside twenty-seven seconds, standing in one spot and turning: the West Pier's skeleton, a house on its head, the tower in the low sun, and the puddles doing the lamps in reflection.

A teal and green seaside house built upside down, resting on its roof ridge beside the beach promenade under a clear blue sky — 8:37. All four of these inside twenty-seven seconds, standing in one spot and turning: the West Pier's skeleton, a house on its head, the tower in the low sun, and the puddles doing the lamps in reflection.

The mural's advice held up all day, because the small things kept coming. That evening I walked into the town center and found the Jubilee Clock Tower wearing its Christmas outfit: hundreds of strings of fairy lights radiating from the tower's crown to the surrounding rooftops, a full canopy of gold and white stars over the intersection, with the clock face lit in the middle and a portrait medallion labeled Prince Consort on the stone below. The clock read twenty past seven and for once I could verify a landmark against my own camera: it was twenty past seven. I saved the tower's portrait for another evening, and it earned the wait.

Down on the dark seafront the i360 had dressed up too, the whole pole lit in a gradient of purple and red above the empty children's playground and the lamplit promenade. A seaside town in winter keeps its lights on with no audience in particular, and that, I think, is when you can tell a place actually likes itself.

The i360 tower at night lit purple and red along its full height, above a lamplit promenade and an empty children's playground by the beach — Half past eight on the seafront. The tower in evening purple, performing for an audience of roughly one.

Bookshops before the train

One November evening belonged to the clock tower again and to a bookshop. At teatime I stood directly under the tower and shot straight up through the canopy, the strings of lights converging on the stone like the inside of a firework. Of everything I brought home, that is the single frame that most feels like that November: cold air, gold light, a Victorian tower pretending to be a Christmas tree.

Looking up at the Jubilee Clock Tower at night, strings of golden fairy lights radiating symmetrically from the tower against the black sky — Just before half five, directly underneath. The tower as the center of its own firework.

Then I did what I always do in a town with an evening to spare, and went to look at books. The Waterstones by the clock tower had gone fully seasonal: a red hardback called Why Mummy Drinks at Christmas propped on an easel declaring itself the most wine-derful time of the year, and further along, between tinsel and baubles, Young Mungo with a Waterstones Exclusive Edition sticker, Douglas Stuart's Glasgow love story dressed in a Christmas garland it absolutely did not ask for. Bookshops in December are one of civilization's better jokes, and I mean that as praise.

A red hardback of Why Mummy Drinks at Christmas by Gill Sims displayed on an easel in a bookshop, with Christmas decorations around it — Waterstones at teatime. Mummy's Christmas coping strategies, and a Booker winner in tinsel.

A paperback of Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart with a Waterstones Exclusive Edition sticker, standing in a bookshop display wrapped in Christmas garland with red baubles — Waterstones at teatime. Mummy's Christmas coping strategies, and a Booker winner in tinsel.

That is November in Brighton, and I left it with the specific contentment of a town that never once tried to be efficient at me.

January, and a different sea

Come January, Brighton had swapped costumes completely. Same clock tower, no lights, no canopy: just the stone silhouette against a huge brooding sky at half two in the afternoon, a green double decker sliding past, the Waterstones sign in the background like a returning character, and the sea visible as a gray stripe at the bottom of West Street. January light on the Channel is a long negotiation between cloud layers, and everything under it looks like a film still.

The Jubilee Clock Tower silhouetted against heavy gray clouds on a January afternoon, a green Brighton and Hove double decker bus passing and a Waterstones shopfront behind, the sea a pale stripe at the end of the street — The same tower in winter light, with January doing the lighting and the Waterstones sign making a cameo behind it.

I went straight down to the water. The Palace Pier stood out against clouds the color of wet slate, its white domed pavilion and distant helter skelter catching what little brightness the sky allowed, and the sea had turned that heavy teal that only cold water manages. The whole thing rode above the waves on its forest of iron legs, fully open and almost alone.

Brighton Palace Pier under heavy gray clouds, its white domed pavilion and distant helter skelter above a teal sea and shingle beach — Half past two. The pier holding its ground under a sky the color of wet slate.

The best photograph January gave me took itself. Two people were sitting together at the tideline, backs to the town, coats and wool hats on, watching a break in the clouds pour pale gold onto the water while a line of wind turbines held the horizon. In winter a beach goes back to being a shore, and these two clearly knew it. I kept my distance, kept them anonymous, and kept the picture.

Two people seen from behind sitting close together on a shingle beach in winter coats, facing a dark sea under storm clouds broken by pale gold light, wind turbines faint on the horizon — The shore doing what shores are for. Two coats, one break in the clouds, and the wind farm just visible on the horizon.

A few minutes along the front, a beach terrace sat empty under its festoon lights, marble tables wiped and waiting, two giant mirror-ball lamps hanging from a double lamp post with a seagull stationed on top of each like paid security. Behind them, transparent dining domes and the West Pier's skeleton far down the water. An empty beach bar in January is a strangely dignified thing: fully dressed, fully lit, admitting nothing.

An empty beachfront terrace in winter with marble cafe tables and festoon lights, two large mirror ball lamps each topped by a seagull, clear dining domes and the distant West Pier ruin beyond the shingle — The terrace in full dress with no guests, a seagull stationed on each mirror ball. The West Pier keeps its distance down the shore.

The staircase

In January I was staying somewhere I had booked out of pure curiosity: one of the vast old hotels that face the sea along the King's Road, the kind built in the railway age when Brighton was where London went to breathe. I will leave it unnamed and let the interiors speak, because the interiors have not stopped speaking since the nineteenth century.

The entrance hall runs on yellow and gold, with a scallop-patterned blue carpet flowing through it like shallow water, marble columns, lantern chandeliers, and a round table carrying a flower arrangement roughly the size of a small tree. And then the staircase. Cast iron balustrades in black filigree, climbing a full square stairwell around an open well, story after story, up to a circular glass dome that pours daylight down the middle of the building. I checked in at ten to three and did not make it to my room until well past three, because I kept stopping on landings.

A grand hotel stair hall with yellow walls, black ornate cast iron balustrades, a lantern chandelier and a round table carrying a large arrangement of lilies and delphiniums on a blue scallop patterned carpet — Ten to three: the flowers at the foot of the stairs, and the stairwell climbing to its circle of sky. Check-in took a while, entirely my fault.

Tiers of ornate iron balustrade rising around an open square stairwell toward a large circular glass dome skylight — Ten to three: the flowers at the foot of the stairs, and the stairwell climbing to its circle of sky. Check-in took a while, entirely my fault.

I kept coming back to that stairwell. In the evening, with the dome gone dark, the coil of stairs turned amber and shadow, and looking straight up from a landing at ten past six the square spirals stacked into the dark like a diagram of the building dreaming. Another morning, at four minutes to eight, I leaned over the same rail and looked down instead: the well corkscrewing away below, patterned carpets and polished handrails all the way to a tiny table of flowers at the bottom. Same stairs, opposite direction, a completely different building.

Looking down an open square stairwell, polished wooden handrails and ornate gray ironwork spiralling past patterned carpets to a small round table of flowers far below — Four minutes to eight, over the rail. The well corkscrewing down to its tiny table of flowers, story after story of the same patterned carpet.

The rest of the hotel kept the same standard. One evening the bar sat almost empty at seven o'clock, a circular island of bottles under a halo of light between red marble columns, the panelled bar front glowing blue, backlit panels of gold and coral art on the walls, the coffered ceiling lost in navy shadow. Dinner later that evening was two fat scallops seared amber, served in their own fan-ribbed shell with pea shoots and thin batons of green apple. I offer no verdict beyond the fact that I photographed the shell empty as well, and that second photograph is not on this page.

A nearly empty hotel bar in the evening, a circular island bar ringed by a halo of light between red marble columns, the blue panelled bar front glowing beneath dark coffered ceilings — Evening: the bar at seven, all halo and blue shadow, and scallops at nine served in their own architecture.

Two seared scallops served in a large fan ribbed scallop shell with pea shoots and thin batons of green apple on a white plate — Evening: the bar at seven, all halo and blue shadow, and scallops at nine served in their own architecture.

Sunrise, and the Pavilion through glass

One morning gave me the two bookends of the whole story within fifteen minutes.

At half past eight I stepped out onto the esplanade into a proper winter sunrise: the sun burning a hole through slate clouds directly over the Palace Pier, the whole sky streaked gold and gray, the terraces and pool below still empty, the domes and umbrellas of the beach bars folded for the season. And in the corner of the frame, a pink banner insisting, to absolutely no one, that this was the best ice cream on Brighton beach by far, in the deep of January, to an empty seafront. I loved that banner very much. That is the seaside town in winter in a single object: the boast stays up all year, because the town means it whether you are there or not.

Winter sunrise over the sea with the Palace Pier silhouetted in the distance, gold light breaking through slate clouds above an empty beachfront terrace and pool, a pink banner reading the best ice cream on Brighton beach in the foreground — 8:29. Sunrise over the pier, nobody on the front, and the ice cream banner making its case to an empty January. I believed it.

Fourteen minutes later, on the way out of town, I finally saw the building Brighton is famous for. The Royal Pavilion rose over its garden hedges in full Indian fantasy, onion domes and minarets in pale stone under a flat gray sky, looking exactly as unlikely as it must have looked two hundred years ago: a maharaja's palace parked in an English seaside town by a king who had never been anywhere near India. I photographed it through glass, in passing, the window frame's shadow across the top of the shot, and then Brighton was behind me.

Brighton for me is chalkboards and handpumps, a lit bandstand over a black sea, a staircase with a circle of sky on top, and a sunrise with an ice cream boast in the corner. A town that can hand you all of that in the off season, with the tide out and the wind up, is a town worth catching in its own weather.

The Royal Pavilion's pale onion domes and minarets rising above garden hedges and iron railings under a flat gray sky, photographed through a window with a dark frame shadow at the top — Quarter to nine, through a window, at speed. The domes land anyway.

Winter Brighton, then. Fairy lights in one month, storm light in another, and the same town underneath both: a place that keeps every lamp lit through the empty season, greets strangers in chalk, and claims the best ice cream on the beach in the depths of January. Somebody there is expecting me to come back and check. I intend to.