Royal Pavilion
About
The Royal Pavilion is the strangest and most brilliant building in Brighton, a Regency seaside palace built for the Prince Regent with a skyline of onion domes and minarets that owes more to Mughal India than to England. Inside it gets even stranger, with a banqueting room under a dragon chandelier and a music room lined in imitation bamboo and gilt. It works well as a rainy-day plan since the whole visit is indoors, and the included audio guide explains why George IV built something this outlandish two hundred years ago. The gardens around it are free to walk through even if you skip the paid interior. Give it a good hour and a half if you want to read the rooms properly rather than just photograph them.
Photos
Highlights
- ✓The Banqueting Room and its dragon chandelier
- ✓The Music Room with its hand-painted domed ceiling
- ✓The Regency-era kitchens
- ✓Free public gardens surrounding the building
Tips
- →Book online in advance, it can sell out on summer weekends
- →Combine with Brighton Museum next door, they sit in the same gardens
- →The audio guide is included in the ticket price, so use it
Best Season
More Attraction Activities
Brighton Palace Pier
Brighton's iconic working pier, free to walk with paid rides and a fairground at the end. Fully open and operating.
Brighton Museum and Art Gallery
A free city museum next to the Royal Pavilion, covering design, fashion, world art, and local history.
Booth Museum of Natural History
A free Victorian natural history museum with taxidermy dioramas, skeletons, and fossils, a short trip from the centre.