Brighton beach
The beach that helped invent the seaside holiday, and still a proper swim today
Brighton didn’t have a beach resort worth the name until an eighteenth-century doctor decided seawater was medicine. Richard Russell wrote up the supposed benefits of drinking and bathing in seawater, moved his practice to the town, and word spread; within a couple of generations Brighton had gone from fishing town to the most fashionable resort in the country, with the future George IV building himself a palace here to be near the water. That’s the short version of how an awful lot of England’s idea of a day at the seaside traces back to this stretch of coast.
The Environment Agency rates the water here Good for quality, and it sits right in the middle of the seafront, a short walk from the station with Hove running along one side and Brighton Kemptown on the other if you’d rather fewer people around you. This being the main town beach, it fills up fast on a hot weekend, so turn up early if you want any space to yourself. Conditions can change quickly on this coast, so check before you get in.
