Brighton Beach

Brighton beach runs about five kilometres along the Sussex coast, from Hove in the west to the Marina in the east, with the city rising directly behind it. It is shingle rather than sand — a fact that surprises people and does not seem to reduce the crowds.

It is where the English seaside was invented. A local physician promoted sea bathing here as a medical treatment in the 1750s; the Prince Regent built the Royal Pavilion; the railway arrived in 1841 and brought London by the trainload. Two piers followed. The Palace Pier of 1899 still operates with its arcades and rides. The West Pier, opened 1866, closed in 1975 and burned in 2003, and its skeleton stands offshore as one of the most photographed ruins in Britain.

The shore is steep banked shingle, with the stones getting larger toward the top of the beach. The drop into the water is quick, which makes for good swimming and a hazard for anyone who cannot. The Channel is cold — around 17–18°C in August — and there is a strong tidal stream running along the coast. Groynes divide the beach into bays and are what stop the shingle migrating east.

Development is a city front: the Kings Road above, arches beneath it holding bars, galleries and a working fishing museum, plus a naturist section east of the Marina marked since 1980. The i360 observation tower stands at the West Pier site. Deckchairs, a volleyball court and swimming zones marked by buoys are laid out in season.

Shingle, not sand, and fourteen degrees in August — the town has been selling that since the 1750s and has never once apologised for it. Come for the ruined West Pier standing in the water, the Palace Pier still working, the naturist section that has been there since 1980, and the understanding that the English seaside was invented here as a medical treatment.