Explore Brighton

The Royal Pavilion is a former royal seaside residence in central Brighton, built in three stages from 1787 for George, Prince of Wales, later King George IV. From 1815 John Nash gave it its Indian-inspired exterior of onion domes and minarets, while the interiors mix Chinese and Indian styles. Queen Victoria sold it to the town in 1850.

SEA LIFE Brighton is an aquarium on Madeira Drive on the Brighton seafront, opened in 1872 as the Brighton Aquarium and in continuous operation ever since. The tanks are set in High Victorian Gothic halls with vaulted ceilings and columns, while the street front was rebuilt in the 1920s. The SEA LIFE chain has run it since 1991.

Brighton Palace Pier is a pleasure pier on the Brighton seafront opposite the Old Steine, opened in 1899 to replace the Chain Pier, which had collapsed in 1896. Its theatre was demolished in 1986, and the deck now carries amusement arcades, fairground rides, roller coasters and food stalls. It is the only one of Brighton's three piers still in use.

Brighton Museum & Art Gallery occupies part of the Royal Pavilion Estate, in buildings first put up for the Prince of Wales in the early 1800s; the museum moved into its present rooms in 1902. Its collections cover decorative art and design, fine art from the 15th to the 20th century, world art, fashion and the history of Brighton.

Volk's Electric Railway is a narrow-gauge railway along the Brighton seafront, built by the engineer Magnus Volk and opened in August 1883. It is the oldest electric railway still in operation, running small open wooden cars over the shingle between Aquarium station, near the Palace Pier, and Black Rock, with a stop at Halfway.

Brighton i360 is a 162-metre observation tower on Brighton seafront at the landward end of the ruined West Pier, designed by Marks Barfield, the architects of the London Eye, and opened in 2016. A glass pod for up to 200 people rises along the slender column to 138 metres, with views over the city, the South Downs and the English Channel.

The West Pier is the ruin of a pleasure pier off the Brighton seafront, designed by Eugenius Birch and opened in 1866. It closed to the public in 1975, storms in 2002 and two fires in 2003 destroyed most of it, and today only the iron framework of the former concert hall stands in the sea. It can be seen from the beach and promenade near the i360 tower.

Preston Manor is the former manor house of the village of Preston, now part of Brighton and Hove, two miles north of the city centre. Rebuilt in 1738 around a 13th-century core and enlarged in 1905, it was left to the town by the Stanford family in 1932 and shows Edwardian life upstairs and below stairs, with a walled garden and a pet cemetery.