Discovering the Royal Pavilion

Eight years, more or less, I have lived in Brighton, and only recently did I visit the Royal Pavilion for the first time. It is another of those immensely historic and beautiful attractions that sits in the middle of our city, regularly walked by or seen as emblems on bus seats or Brighton merchandise, yet so often under-acknowledged. It seems, when I’ve brought it up to friends, that many Brighton natives have been in at least once, but as young children taken by their parents, and not again since. But I think it’s time that changes; and in this piece I set out to encourage that change. 

 The building, first and foremost, is a breath-taking feat of architecture, both inside and out: but more of that sort of flattery later. Just as importantly, it represents a prominent era in British history, most notably housing, if be it only briefly, Queen Victoria herself. And lastly, but no less significantly, The Pavilion stands as yet another example of our incredible ability to conserve and maintain important relics from the past: though the building is over two centuries old it, by no mean feat, stands solid and spectacular as ever, while still very accessible to its awe-struck visitors. 

The view from the Pavilion Gardens

Construction began in 1787 when Henry Holland was commissioned by Queen Victoria’s uncle, King George IV (who at the time was still only Prince of Wales: alarming to imagine an effort as extreme as the construction of a palace could be requested by a prince). Prince George, it could be said, and usually is, was a flamboyant, extravagant individual, with as much, if not more, interest in drinking and parties and fanciful architecture as he did in ruling the country: an ordinary, run of the mill palace would never have been enough to quench his desire for luxury.

Originally called the Marine Pavilion, the palace was built around a rented farmhouse, later being expanded, then once again by John Nash between 1815 and 1823 into the enormous, exotic, dome and minaret-adorned building we see today. Though the building is ‘Indian on the outside and Chinese on the inside’, the prince himself never actually visited either country, and the themes we see are merely a Westernised, perhaps over-exaggerated vision of their architectural styles.

Within this outrageous building the prince would host lavish parties, grand banquets and balls, and guests would stay in the many guest bedrooms for several days at a time. Arguably, one of the most breath-taking parts of the palace is the dining room: entered from a relatively modest, Chinese-style corridor, the enormity of the dining room takes one’s breath away, the room feeling as though it expands as it is entered. The height of the ceiling, above which rises one of the iconic onion-shaped domes, the gigantic paintings on the walls, the dining table with its original chairs stretching down the centre (above which hangs the original, dragon-guarded chandelier) - all these features are so spectacular, so over-the-top, that it is possible almost to see into the past, to image the room echoing with the sound of the prince’s many laughing, chattering guests. 

Though the fun didn’t last forever. Under the demands of the monarchy - and his fun-seeking lifestyle - the now King’s health became increasingly worse and his visits to the Pavilion progressively less frequent until his final visit in 1827, just three years before his death. This is when his brother King William the IV acceded to the throne, albeit for only seven years. During his brief reign, William the IV (after whom one of central Brighton’s favourite pubs is named) set in motion several significant societal shifts including the abolition of slavery across most British colonies, as well as expanding voting rights and improving factory working conditions. But this piece is not about him, nor even is it about his unpopular predecessor: it is about the Pavilion.

The corridor into the Banqueting Room

When Queen Victoria acceded to the throne in 1937 at just eighteen years old, she visited Brighton a couple of times, staying at her royal residence there, the Royal Pavilion. She was very pleased by the enthusiastic welcome she received by the people of Brighton, but was unimpressed, if actually displeased by, the Pavilion itself, calling it a ‘strange, odd Chinese looking thing.’ She was also not happy about the fact that she could only see ‘a little morsel of the sea’ from one window, an irritant worsened by the fact the building was actually so close to the beach that the view might easily have been better. Her second visit proved much more enjoyable and she began to see the appeal and the beauty in the place and she visited several more times over the years, mostly after her marriage to Prince Albert, despite her dislike of Brighton’s crowdedness. 

 This unease with Brighton eventually proved terminal, with the direct railways leading into town opening up, and the popularity of Brighton increasing, culminating in the day the queen and prince Albert were recognised and chased by a group of boys while out on a walk on the Chain pier (the original Brighton pier that came before the two we know today). Though she had disguised herself with a veil, she was not safe from intrusion and had to run back to the Pavilion gates as the children chasing her tried to get a look under her bonnet, an event that deeply bothered her and resulted in her decision to no longer use the Pavilion, and to strip it of all its furnishings and paintings, to be returned to the royal collection. 

This was the moment the course of the Pavilion’s history was most severely altered. 

A bill was brought before parliament, seeking the rights to demolish the Pavilion to repurpose the space for redevelopment. This proposition was strongly opposed, and prevented, by the Brighton public who put forth a petition to prohibit the demolition, as well as by a campaign led by Lewis Slight, the Town Clerk for Brighton. It resulted in the Pavilion being sold to the town in 1850 for £53’000 (the approximate equivalent of £9.25 million today) - making it the only British Royal Palace to not be owned by either the state or the crown.

 Within the year, the Pavilion was accessible to the public and Queen Victoria decided to return many of its royal contents including paintings and the chandelier previously mentioned that still hangs spectacularly over the dining table. For a century the space was used for a wide variety of events: assemblies and galas; a library was opened there; the likes of Oscar Wilde gave lectures; and even later it was used as a hospital for wounded Indian soldiers during the First World War (an act intended to maintain India as a political ally). 

Though the Pavilion became strongly rooted in the centre of Brighton as a cultural, political and social epicentre, and was officially grade I listed in 1952 as a site of ‘exceptional interest’, it is not entirely immune to the effects of time, nor to the ravages of both nature and people. An arson attack committed in 1975 saw some rooms severely damaged, which took 15 years to restore, and the hurricane of 1987, which had a brutal impact on East Sussex and many other parts of the U.K., gave the palace a beating, knocking down a minaret which crashed through the ceiling and became lodged in the floor.

As well as these damages however, the effects of its age still chip away at the building’s infrastructure and brilliance, and so over the years it has been under almost constant renovation, an act of commitment, devotion, and admiration for the past that I view as extremely worthy of acknowledgement. Such renovations include the reconstruction in the early 80s of the Pavilion gardens that we lounge and picnic in today: they were reinstated to their original layout, so closely reproduced as to even be replanted with the original shrubs and flowers they would have boasted in the 19th century. A £10 million refurbishment project, seeing both the interior and exterior structures restored to their former glory - also replicated as closely to their original appearances as possible - was completed in the early 1990s. But a building this grand and this historically significant requires ongoing attention and so refurbishments continue to this day, and will do for many years to come.

Years of dedication and effort went into the construction of the Royal Pavilion and today, two centuries on, it requires just as much combined energy and care to ensure the permanence of one of Brighton and Hove’s most iconic features. And I felt on my first - but not last - visit to the Royal Pavilion that the grand rooms and eccentric hallways of this glorious palace are imbued with the years upon years of the town's continuing efforts to preserve it.