Brighton, East Sussex: The Tomb Trail

Although I’ve been to Brighton many, many times over the years, and I would definitely say I’m a taphophile (NOT to be confused with necrophile. Ewww!), for whatever reason, I can’t say I had ever given much thought to its cemeteries. However, I wanted an excuse to go to the seaside and have a Boho Gelato back in early May, before museums had reopened, so I found myself researching outdoor attractions, and Brighton’s “Tomb Trail” popped up. With a name like that, how could I not instantly be won over?

 

Brighton and Hove are actually home to seven cemeteries, three of them clustered around Lewes Road, and the Tomb Trail is located within Extra-Mural Cemetery (which feels like an odd name to me, even though I know it just means the cemetery is located outside the city – in middle school we used to call what was essentially recess “intramurals”, I guess because it made it sound a bit more grown up. I used them as an opportunity to hang out in the library with my friends and get kicked out for laughing too hard at the lame “confessions” in YM Magazine, especially if they involved farts). As seemed to be happening in much of the UK around the 1840s, Brighton’s cemeteries were becoming overcrowded, so new cemeteries were established outside of the city centre to try to help cope with the problem. Extra-Mural Cemetery was the first of these in Brighton, built in 1850, followed shortly by the adjoining Woodvale Cemetery. In the 1880s, Downs Cemetery was built on another plot of adjoining land to form the massive cemetery complex that exists today, though since I had never been to this end of Brighton before, I had no idea it was here.

 

The layout of the cemeteries is super confusing if you arrive by car, and we accidentally drove into the wrong cemetery and had to leave and circle around a few times before we found the entrance to the right one – we ended up having to stop and find directions from someone else’s blog post about it because Google Maps took us in a very wrong direction indeed (in case someone else is in the same boat as us, I’ll pass along the favour by telling you the vehicle entrance is opposite a petrol station with an M&S Simply Food). But once we got to the right place, we spotted signs for the Tomb Trail immediately.

 

There didn’t seem to be a dedicated parking area, so we just parked on the side of the path near some other cars, as is standard in cemeteries that allow cars. I think there are meant to be Tomb Trail leaflets available somewhere, though it might be the sort of convoluted process where you have to email the council and wait for them to send you one, so we just went without. There are directional arrows designed to keep you on track, but man, is it easy to get off-piste! At one point, an arrow appeared to be pointing directly into a clump of bushes, so we thought the sign must have gotten bumped by a car or something, because there was no way that could possibly be right, and just continued on up the main path. However, we seemed to be going an awfully long time without seeing another arrow, and once we started to get to an area of new graves (all the others on the Tomb Trail had been very old), we realised we must have gone wrong and retraced our steps. Yep, turns out we were supposed to walk through an actual clump of bushes. After struggling through and ducking under a very low-hanging tree branch, we did meet up with the arrows again, so I can only assume the area was less overgrown when they first put the signs up.

 

Like much of Brighton, the cemetery is built on a hill, so you will find yourself climbing up and down a lot, but the cemetery itself is lovely. Definitely overgrown in spots, like every British cemetery I’ve ever been to (in case you couldn’t tell from my description of the shrubbery section of the trail), but also full of lots of attractive old Victorian tombstones and statuary. It was still bluebell season when we visited, so there were lots of those out (and we found a beautiful display of tulips in the middle of Brighton after leaving the cemetery – I guess I’ve never actually been to Brighton in late spring before to have seen them). There aren’t any really famous people buried in this cemetery, but there’s a few Victorians who were prominent in Brighton, like John Urpeth Rastrick, who was the engineer that laid out the Brighton Main Line, and who is now laid out himself in the heaviest tomb in the cemetery (above right), which had to be pulled by twenty horses (poor horses); a circus performer (horse tomb above left), and a VC holder or two. Nonetheless, there were still plenty of interesting tombstones to look at, and some mildly creepy Stations of the Cross style statue tableaux on the chapel (I thought that was more of a Catholic thing, but I’ve never actually been to a C of E service, so I wouldn’t really know). There was however, no toilet, at least not one I could find, so after we walked the Tomb Trail, which took about an hour, I beat a hasty retreat to the Sainsbury’s across the road because I really needed a wee.

 

You are of course welcome to venture outside of the Tomb Trail, and walk through the other cemeteries as well, but because of the situation with my bladder, we did not end up doing that on this visit. But the Tomb Trail was certainly a nice walk, though maybe not quite as gloriously creepy as the name suggests (perhaps it’s better in the autumn?), and I would definitely like to check out the other Lewes Road cemeteries when I have a chance, because they looked similarly ornate and intriguing. Recommended if you’re visiting Brighton and want to do something away from all the crowds of the pier and the Lanes. And yes, of course I got my Boho Gelato afterwards, which was just as good as it always is, even though they didn’t have any of my usual favourite flavours in stock (I “settled” for raspberry ripple, salted caramel, and honeycomb mint chocolate chip, and was pleasantly surprised by how delicious the honeycomb mint chip was, as I don’t usually like honeycomb and wouldn’t have thought it went well with mint). Really, any time I can finish an ice cream in Brighton without a jerk seagull stealing it out of my hand half-eaten, it’s a win!

Too Many Cherries!

Enough with the throwback posts for now – here’s what I’ve been doing recently, and it mainly involves dealing with too many damn cherries. I know things are opening back up, but I haven’t been on public transport since March, and I’m still not super comfortable with the idea, which means museums are out of the question for the time being, since the only one I can walk to is the one I work at, and we’re fortunately not opening for at least another month or two. But Marcus and I did have a commitment in the form of the cherry tree we rent in Sussex that needed to be picked, since ripe cherries wait for no one. Since it was an outdoor activity (obviously), and the orchard said they would enforce social distancing, it seemed like a safe enough outing, so we rented a car last week to make this happen.

We rented a tree in the same orchard last year, and it was such a miserable experience that I told Marcus to never rent one again. It decided to absolutely piss it down the whole time we were picking (and of course the rain stopped as soon as we stopped), so we got drenched and covered in mud, and since we were planning on spending the rest of the day in Brighton and I hadn’t brought a change of clothes, I had to walk around wet and cold for the rest of the day (and with a swollen face, because we visited Marcus’s sister right after we finished picking and I was so allergic to her cat that half my face swelled up).  As if that wasn’t bad enough, we then had to spend days pitting all the bloody cherries, because the problem with renting a tree vs. pick your own is that you can’t just pick what you want, you have to pick the entire damn tree whether you like it or not (and because cherry trees are at risk from an invasive fruit fly that breeds in the cherries themselves, you also have to pick up all the horrible mashed rotting cherries from the ground with your bare hands, which is no picnic). But Marcus clearly didn’t listen to me, and went ahead and rented one anyway, so here we are. This time I was smart and packed a raincoat and a change of clothes because I knew if I was prepared, it wouldn’t rain. I was not wrong.

When we arrived at the orchard, the woman working there greeted us with a cheery, “your tree under-performed this year, so we’ve given you two trees to pick!” as though it would be a treat for me to have to pick a second bloody tree. I was not happy. But we didn’t really have a choice (well, I wanted to go back and tell them we didn’t need the second tree, but Marcus was gung-ho), so we got picking. Normally, if I have to do manual labour with other people, I kind of fart around and do as little work as possible until I’m allowed to leave, but in situations where the work’s not going to get done unless I do it, you better believe I am a fast worker (when I used to work in a brewery, I would occasionally get told I could leave early once I finished a certain amount of work, and I usually finished so much earlier than they thought I would that my boss would attempt to renege on the deal. I hated that place). So I was probably a bit rougher on the trees than I should have been in my haste, but we easily picked the first tree in half an hour and moved on to the second one, which was right next to an older couple picking, despite the promise of social distancing (we were outside, and we were still two metres apart when picking at opposite sides of our respective trees, but I would have been more comfortable with more space). We had picked the other tree first in hopes they would have finished by the time we moved on, but they were clearly taking their time, so we just masked up and got on with it (this did allow me to eavesdrop, and I overheard the woman saying that the cherries keep for three weeks in her pantry, since she doesn’t have a fridge. Who has a pantry but no fridge?! You must be fairly wealthy to have a house big enough to have a pantry (I certainly don’t have a pantry), so why would you not have a fridge too? So bizarre). Unfortunately, this tree had WAY more cherries on it than the first one, and even though about a third of them were rotten (which makes me suspect the real reason we were given it to pick was because the renters didn’t turn up this year), we still had to pick every bloody one, which took about an hour and a half. I suppose at least it didn’t rain this year, but it was too sunny, so even though I slathered on the sunscreen, I was still paranoid that I could feel my skin crisping (as it turns out, I didn’t even slightly tan, because I am really keen on sunscreen. I like to maintain my pasty glow). Towards the end, I felt something drop onto my neck and then down my arm, which I initially thought was just a leaf from the tree until I looked down and discovered it was a daddy longlegs (what British people call harvestmen), which really really freak me out, so it was lucky we were pretty much finished, because that was it for me. I will never be a fan of nature.

Having made it through that ordeal, we then had the fun of processing what was at least 15 kilos of cherries. Last year, I was at least able to pawn some off on people at work, but since I’m working from home at the moment, I couldn’t even do that (I did give some to my friend when I met her to play tennis, but she only wanted a small bag. We offered some to our neighbour, who said he would check with his partner and get back to us, and then never got back to us. Why don’t people want free cherries? They’re delicious in reasonable quantities! I did check to see if we could donate them, but our local food bank doesn’t take fresh fruit, which is understandable). We ate some fresh, but obviously you can only eat so many before doing a Zachary Taylor (who died from stomach troubles after eating cherries and milk on a hot July day), so that meant a whole hell of a lot of them had to be pitted, and we were working against the clock, because no matter what pantry lady says, fresh cherries only last for a week tops, and even that’s pushing it. Because I had to work the day after cherry picking (and I’m lazy), Marcus took on the bulk of the pitting operation, and then froze most of them. I still don’t know what we’re going to do with kilos of frozen cherries, but at least once they’re in the freezer I’m not actively stressed about them rotting (though I am stressed about the lack of freezer space for more important things, like ice cream. I guess I could make cherry ice cream, but I prefer unhealthier flavours like cookies’n’cream).

It doesn’t help that although I love fresh cherries (in moderation), I don’t actually like cooked cherries much (I find they stay too firm, and I don’t care for the texture. I hate cherry pie for that reason), so we have gotten creative with some of the fresh cherries (the variety we picked is Regina, which is a sweet, medium firm burgundy-coloured cherry that makes your hands end up looking bloody after you’ve pitted a bunch). We made cherry jam last year, and I might do it again (though we still have a bit of last year’s, since we’re not huge jam eaters. I tend to prefer blueberry or blackberry if I am going to eat it, but my allegiances primarily lay with peanut butter and lemon curd (though not together, blech)), but for now I just made a small amount of compote that I used in cherry crumble bars (though I should have pureed it, because it still has a bit too much texture for my liking, even though I mashed the cherries. I am very weird about textures).

As mentioned above, I LOVE lemon curd, so Marcus made some cherry curd, which weirdly tastes more like key lime pie filling than cherries, though that isn’t really a problem since I also love key lime pie. And I made some cherry syrup, which we mix with fizzy water to make a very delicious cherry soda. Marcus is also soaking some in gin, but I’m not much of a drinker, so I’m not super keen on that (or any of the other things to do with cherries that involve alcohol). Last year, I just ended up throwing most of them into smoothies (if you mix them with chocolate protein powder and milk, they make a fairly tasty chocolate covered cherry flavoured smoothie. You can toss spinach in to up the nutritional value if you don’t mind it turning a disgusting colour (you can’t taste it, it just looks gross)). Despite all this, we still have far too many cherries, and I’ll probably be trying to use them up until next cherry harvest, since no doubt Marcus will book the tree again regardless of what I say about it!

EuroTrip 2007: London and Brighton

We left 21 year old Jessica sobbing in a horrible hostel toilet because she couldn’t hack being away from home on her own for the first time. Fortunately, life was about to improve as she (I) discovered the joys of Brighton (sorry, I’m slipping into a weird kind of third person Jimmy from Seinfeld thing). First thing in the morning of day two, I marched myself down to Victoria Station and invested in a round-trip ticket to Brighton (34 year old me is aghast at the thought of buying train tickets on the day at the actual ticket window. They must have cost a fortune!), with which I instantly fell in love. Finally feeling flush in my independence, I got my lip pierced, which I had been dying to do for ages but hadn’t because I knew my parents wouldn’t be happy, to say the least (and yes, I was an adult, but living with them meant I was still very much under their control. I had a curfew until the day I moved out, aged 23). But now that wouldn’t be my problem for a while (I did also have several tattoos already at this point, but I was good at keeping them hidden, so no one knew). I had a wander around town, visited Infinity Foods (which I still really like) for some vegan sweets (I was just coming off of a year long flirtation with veganism, and was still eating mostly vegan. That lasted until I rediscovered the joys of cheese), visited Brighton Museum, and tried on vegan combat boots at Veg Shoes. I suppose I must have made it down to the pier, but I didn’t even mention it in my journal!

I returned to London that afternoon feeling much happier with the world, and even popped over to Buckingham Palace to have a look at the outside, and went inside Westminster Cathedral, which I’m almost certain I had confused with Westminster Abbey at that point. The weird thing is that I don’t think I’ve ever been back to Westminster Cathedral since, even to walk past (which is frankly all I would be doing anyway, since I’m not religious), so I’m not sure how I managed to find it in the first place! I still do love Brighton – I don’t think I could live there, but I like to make the trip at least once or twice every summer to grab a cone from Boho Gelato, which didn’t exist at the time of my first visit, and walk along the pier, though not at the same time. I learned that lesson the hard way after a jerk seagull snatched my cone out of my hand and ate it in front of me with all his jerk seagull friends.

In London, I had moved from my original hostel (which was near Victoria) to one in Bloomsbury, just across from the British Museum, so of course I felt compelled to spend a day there, and found it memorable mainly for the Ancient Egyptian collection (nowhere near as crowded in those days) and the incredible pain my feet were in by the end of it. This was also the day I discovered ICCo, aka Goodge Street Pizza, which is still one of my standbys if I need a cheap quick meal in the area. I liked it so much I went back the next day and accidentally made a date with a guy who worked there (he didn’t speak much English so I was just smiling and nodding and didn’t realise what I’d agreed to until it was too late) and subsequently stood him up, since I still technically had a (awful) boyfriend, so that put an abrupt end to ICCo, at least until a year later when I actually moved here and renewed my acquaintance with the place, which became my Friday evening treat to myself after class. The guy who asked me out was definitely still working there as of a couple of years ago, but I’m pretty positive he doesn’t remember the incident by now!

I also visited the Tower of London (for the one and only time. I got angry about how basic the Beefeater tour was. I was bitching in my journal because it cost £13, which to me seemed unbelievably expensive. I looked up how much it costs now and guess what it is?! £26! Of course, because the pound has gotten so weak over the years, it probably works out to a similar amount in dollars) and attempted to visit Whitechapel on account of my fascination at the time with Jack the Ripper. I’m not sure what I was hoping to see (Victorian London, alive and well?), but it certainly wasn’t what I got. All my journal says on the matter is “Whitechapel sucks.” I also made it to the Tate Modern and remarked on taking the Tube back, so I’m a little confused how I got to Tower Hill and Whitechapel in the first place. Surely I didn’t walk?! I definitely would not have taken a bus, so I’m a bit perplexed.

Day five was my last in London, and I spent it exploring Camden, which I loved in all my innocence of youth. I bought a horrible cheap black and white striped dress that I thought looked amazing, and a pink and black striped hoodie, both of which you’ll see pop up in pictures later on. I recall that I ended up in Camden because I was trying to walk to the British Library navigating solely by those arrow signs, and the signs crapped out at one point, so I just kept going until I hit Camden (I probably would have been disappointed with the BL back then anyway. It’s not much to look at from the street, and King’s Cross was pretty grim in those days). I also popped back to Westminster for some photos (I seem to have gotten Westminster Abbey and Cathedral straight by then) and prepared for my trip on the Eurostar the next morning, which I believe still departed from Waterloo at that point. My journal records that I bought a white chocolate Magnum for dinner because I couldn’t find an Indian restaurant or chippy to eat at. Must not have been trying very hard!

Sorry if this post was a bit uneventful, but after my first day, I did basically just have a nice time in London, so there’s not much to be said about it, other than the wry observations of a hardened Londoner looking back at my youthful naïveté. I also wasn’t interacting much with my fellow backpackers at that stage, so I don’t even have any stories to tell about other travellers.  I think it’ll get more interesting as things go wrong, so hopefully my next post, which will include my journey to Venice via Paris, and Venice itself, will be more exciting! Thanks for bearing with my reminiscences!

 

Brighton: Brighton Fishing Museum

My favourite thing about the Brighton Fishing Museum had to be the sign located on a hut opposite it, reading “Brighton Fishing Museum, Admission Free, ‘Just Opposite this Sign.'” I love that “Just Opposite this Sign” is in quotation marks, and enjoyed trying to figure out why. Is that the museum’s slogan? Did there used to be someone who actually stood inside the hut, directing traffic across to the museum, and it is quoting them? Do they just not know how to use quotation marks? Whatever the explanation, the sign is delightful.

   

Stumbling on this museum was actually a bit of a fluke (ha!), so maybe it’s good they had the sign. I’ve been to all the other museums in Brighton and Hove that I know about, except for the Old Police Cells (because you have to book a tour to those in advance, and they’re only offered at like 10 in the morning), so I wasn’t even planning on visiting a museum – I just wanted ice cream from Boho Gelato! But we were wandering along the beach, eating our ice creams (we actually went to Brighton twice in one week while we had the use of a car, so even though I did have a seagull steal my ice cream cone and eat it in front of me in what was a deeply traumatic experience that I mentioned in my last post, we went to this museum on our first visit when I was able to finish my ice cream unmolested by gulls (that White Chocolate Almond, oh my god)) when we found Brighton Fishing Museum, which I had heard about, but never really knew where it was. Turns out it is in one of the storefronts down on the beach (rather than on the pier), near a disturbing giant prawn statue that I made Marcus stand by for a photo, and once I found it, obviously I was going in, because I can’t resist a museum.

  

The museum itself is rather cute, but has a vague air of dust and abandonment about it. Admission is free, just as the sign promised, and there was no one there to have taken any money anyway, though there was a small museum shop in a hut nearby (a different hut than the one with the sign on it) with a cute dog inside, so I guess they could presumably run over in case of trouble (the human running the shop, not the dog). I’ve still never been to the Grimsby Fishing Heritage Centre (that is truly the dream, but I’m afraid to go because I know it will almost invariably disappoint), but I don’t think this museum was anything like on their level (certainly there were no changes in temperature or chances to experience seasickness), nor was it like the Time and Tide Museum or NAVIGO – it was most similar to the Hastings Fishermen’s Museum in both size and scope.

  

The museum consisted of one main room dominated by a fishing boat, with a small anteroom off to one side. It was mostly about the importance of fishing to Brighton, which, since Brighton became a resort town in the late 1700s, is something that is largely overlooked (and indeed, the rich people who flocked to Brighton after it became trendy were themselves not a fan of the fishermen, thinking them unforgivably crude and foul-mouthed, and their trade a smelly and disgusting one (though I’m willing to bet the rich and famous stuffed themselves stupid on fresh seafood whilst in Brighton)).

  

This was a very old fashioned museum, with nothing interactive about it at all, but if the information is interesting enough, sometimes that’s what you want (or expect, certainly). Unfortunately, that wasn’t really the case here. There were a few signs about the fisherman and their trade, and then a lot of old photos and paintings, and a few old wooden signs. I was interested in learning more about the traditional King Neptune celebrations that used to be held in Brighton (I know sailors used to dress up as Neptune and perform some sort of unpleasant initiation rites on their crew members who were crossing the equator for the first time, and I’m not sure whether these were related, or just also Neptune themed because after all, he is ruler of the sea), but they didn’t go into enough detail for my liking – I guess participants just wore themed costumes?

  

There were only a few display cases – most contained model ships, but there was one with a few pots and Staffordshire-esque figurines in it, which were mildly amusing. The boat inside the museum was named the Sussex Maid, but unlike at the Hastings Fishermen’s Museum, you couldn’t actually climb aboard, so it was minimally interesting. I was far more into Big Ron, the boat outside the museum, mainly because of the name!

  

I have to be frank – this really isn’t one of Brighton’s better museums (not that Brighton even has all that many museums, but the Brighton Museum and Booth Museum are both way nicer), and it’s not even one of the better fishing museums I’ve been to. It’s nice that they are trying to preserve this history, but it’s quite forlorn in its current location, and in need of a space that, I don’t know, at least has windows? The hut with the sign really is the best thing about it, but it was free, so at least I can’t complain about having wasted any money. 1.5/5.

He’s definitely plotting something…

This has absolutely no connection with fishing or Brighton, but I went to another event recently that doesn’t really fit in anywhere, and this post is a little short, so I’m going to take the liberty of sticking it in here. I happened to see Phobiarama listed in Time Out as part of the Lift Festival and was intrigued by the idea of a 40 minute ghost train (or laff-in-the-dark ride, as I like to call them. Blame a childhood spent poring over all those “Now-Defunct Amazing Looking Old-Timey Amusement Park” photo books (this is the sort of thing I mean, though not that actual title since it wasn’t published until 2005)), even though I was less keen on the whole political aspect of it (not because I thought I would disagree with the politics, more because I don’t think they really belong in a dark ride). Nonetheless, I booked Marcus and myself a pair of very expensive (£21 each!) tickets.

You get treated to this photo of me and a cowboy in Brighton, because I don’t have one of Phobiarama.

It is located in what appears to be a temporary purpose-built structure (I haven’t explored King’s Cross all that much since its regeneration, so I can’t say what exactly is normally there) in the Granary Square area, and we were asked to queue outside for about twenty minutes before our slot started. I don’t want to give too much away about the actual experience, in case anyone is going and wants to be surprised, but it’s a Dutch concept that was changed a bit for British audiences, I think mainly in terms of the news clips used. You are riding an actual ghost train style car along a track (cars fit two, so go with a friend or prepare to get friendly with a stranger, because they weren’t really all that big), and the ride uses live performers rather than animatronics or wax figures or something (which I might have preferred!). If you don’t like having things jump out at you in the dark (or clowns, or clowns that jump out at you in the dark), this probably isn’t the event for you, but I love it (well, not clowns, but I’m not so scared of them that I can’t deal), so I had a pretty good time, especially when the cars reversed direction and zipped really fast along the track, which was super fun. I thought the end was strange and it made me uncomfortable, since I felt bad for the performers, and the whole experience dragged on longer than it needed to, but overall I’m glad I went, though I think a tenner would have been a fairer price. Really the scariest part of the ride was when the clowns started blowing up balloons, because I hate balloons, but everything else was pretty tame (that said, some woman kept screaming, so maybe it depends on your tolerance). 3/5, maybe worth checking out if it comes to your city if you like this kind of stuff (I’d imagine London is probably booked up at this point).

Ditchling, East Sussex: Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft

I was apprehensive about visiting the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft after learning about Eric Gill, who was an incestuous paedophile, at the Sussex Modernism exhibition at Two Temple Place last year.  Gill was part of the Ditchling group of artists, so I knew there was a good chance this museum would have some of his work, but I was hoping that because the Ditchling Museum hosts a number of temporary exhibitions, Gill’s work wouldn’t make up a significant part of what was on display.  I eventually just reckoned that because National Art Pass holders get free admission (normally £6.50), at least I wouldn’t be contributing any money to it if it was Gill-centric (other than what they get from the National Art Fund I guess), so on a recent trip to Brighton, we stopped off there on the way.

  

Despite my apprehensions about what its collection might contain, I have to admit that the Ditchling Museum itself could not have been in a more bucolic setting if it’d tried. You can certainly see why artists were drawn to this part of England (including the non-molester ones who were presumably less driven by being in a secluded environment to hide their goings-on). We parked out front next to a large pond that was home to ducks and no fewer than three terrapins (I was completely charmed by the terrapins, but much like the Ditchling artists’ group itself, all was not as it seemed on the surface, because apparently locals hate the terrapins (a non-native invasive species) because they eat the ducklings (they’re still cute though, but ducklings are cute too. Can’t they all just get along?)), and the museum was set into a hillside in front of a churchyard and pretty old church, with some tables out front for consuming things from the museum’s cafe (the cakes didn’t look half bad, but I had ice cream in Brighton in my sights).

  

So my first impressions of the museum were overall quite positive, especially when I got inside and saw “Belonging with Morag Myerscough,” which was essentially a big colourful swing set decorated with lots of images and signs (the wall you were meant to be staring at had images relating to different musical movements of the last few decades – I loved the pink skeleton). Not being one to turn down a swing, I had a good long sit on here (the scariest part was first sitting down in it, as the swings did tend to get away from you, but it was OK once you were ensconced). I also liked that the public toilet had a blackboard on the back of the door for doodling, even though touching the chalk was a bit gross (I did wash my hands after, and the toilet was far enough from the door that you couldn’t actually use it whilst you were on the toilet, but it was still kind of unsanitary, albeit fun if you didn’t think about it too much).

  

But then I went into the main gallery, and was met with lots of Gill’s artwork, accompanied by virtually no explanation of who Gill was, nor, most importantly, of the terrible things he had done. This seemed quite disingenuous to me, because context is everything in art history – even if Gill hadn’t been a horrible person, I still would have liked to have seen some biographical information so I could understand what inspired him – this felt like they were trying to keep your view on the art from being altered by the kind of man Gill was. This isn’t to say that I hated everything in this section – I liked some of the pieces by other Ditchling artists, especially the little wooden bear made for a man who had broken his leg, but they really needed to have some kind of background explanation on the community as well. After seeing two exhibitions on them, I still don’t fully understand their connection to Catholicism, but clearly there was some Catholic thread running through the artists’ group here, because much of their work was produced for churches, and the other displays here also had Catholic connections.

  

The temporary exhibition when I visited (which runs until 14 October) featured art by Corita Kent, who was an American printmaker active in the mid-20th century. The most interesting thing about Corita is that she was actually a nun for most of her career (she eventually left the convent in the 1970s, and died from cancer only about ten years later), but still managed to produce bold, fairly controversial work, especially her pieces protesting the Vietnam War (she wasn’t the only member of the clergy doing so (I don’t think nuns are technically clergy, but I forget what heading they do fall under and you know what I mean. They’re not laypeople anyway) – a number of priests were also arrested for their role in anti-war protests). There were actually a series of letters here between her archbishop and mother superior discussing how controversial her work was – basically, the church wanted her to knock it off, but her mother superior defended her, saying that although she didn’t agree with many of Corita’s pieces, she thought she had a real talent. It’s interesting that though we think of nuns as being quite conservative, historically, they have been a refuge for some very progressive women – even as late as the 1960s (or the 1990s, if you count Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act. I’m going to choose to, because that’s seriously one of my favourite movies. I’m such a dork).

  

Her work ranged from the expected religion-inspired pieces to ones more secular in nature, especially on politics and consumerism. I loved “Enriched Bread” (which was a take on Holy Communion), and her circus letter pieces (which I’ve only just realised they cleverly used to spell out Ditchling) – her style in general was pretty cool, even in the pieces where I was less keen on the content. Her life story was also really interesting – in addition to the whole nun thing, she was responsible for the largest and smallest pieces of commissioned art in the US; the largest being a water tower in Boston (which no longer exists, but they saved the paint chips when they took it down, which are now considered their own works of art), and the smallest the Love stamp she designed for USPS. I was glad her pieces were here, because her bright and cheerful style really offset the creepiness of Gill.  There were also a couple of short films she made playing in a small movie room, but I didn’t watch them in their entirety.

  

The other room of the museum contained more Catholic-themed pieces: some cartoons by a priest (the snake in particular cracked me up, biblical reference and all), a delightful photograph of nuns riding camels, and some religious figurines worked in gold. There was also a small display on how printing presses worked, which made me wish there was one you could actually try out. I’d love to learn how to use a printing press – they look so cool, and there’s something magical about seeing your words come to life on a page.

  

This was quite a small museum, effectively being only two exhibition rooms (three if you count the one with the swing); in fact, Marcus looked through their brochure before we left because he was sure we must have missed something, but nope, that was all there was (it looked like there should have been more from the outside as well, as the museum was split between two buildings, but one of them was just the shop and cafe). It was fine because we got in for free, but had I paid £6.50, I think I would have been rather annoyed at the size and the fact that the museum only took about half an hour to see. I also found the lack of information on Gill’s very chequered past troubling, though I can obviously see why they chose to omit it. They should really have had more information on the Sussex modernists in general, because I still haven’t figured out what their ethos was (as I said in the Sussex modernism post). It’d be a lovely place to have a picnic (if you like eating outside – personally I hate it, and when a seagull stole my long-awaited ice cream in Brighton right out of my hand as I was eating it, I felt justified in my hatred of al fresco dining), and it made a perfectly fine pit stop on the way to Brighton, but I feel that such a new museum really has no excuse for shying away from controversy, and the admission fee is also a bit much (I also didn’t like how they essentially ignored us when we were looking around the shop, but fawned all over the older ladies who came in after us, asking them to do a visitors’ survey and everything. What, our opinion didn’t matter?). 2.5/5.

  

Hove, East Sussex: Hove Museum and Art Gallery

I’ve been to Brighton quite a few times over the years, and except for the Old Police Cells Museum, which I’m never around at the right time of day to visit (it’s by pre-booked guided tour only, and the only tour time is 10:30 in the morning), I feel I’ve pretty well exhausted its limited museum options at this point.  So on this trip to the coast (which turned out to be much colder than London, so not a good seaside day after all), I turned to its smaller neighbouring town of Hove, and the Hove Museum and Art Gallery, which was rumoured to have a nice collection of magic lantern slides.

  

The Hove Museum falls under the authority of Brighton Museums, which makes sense, because it is very similar in feel to the larger Brighton Museum.  Fortunately, admission to the Hove Museum is free to all, and not just residents of Brighton and Hove, like the Brighton Museum is. At the time of my visit, there was a special exhibit about puppets on the ground floor, so that’s where I began.

  

I’d be the first to admit that a lot of puppets are kind of menacing, but most of these ones were actually quite charming. I particularly liked the ones of Miss Fox and Miss Cat (above previous paragraph), and of Bluebeard, Bluebeard’s wife, and the ghost of one of his previous wives (not pictured, because I don’t have a photo for some reason). There was a woman in there at the same time as me who was apparently one of the creators of a Rikki-Tikki-Tavi puppet theatre, and she was explaining how she made it to some other woman, but I was too distracted by her pronunciation of “Tavi” to pay attention. I’ve always said “taa-vee,” but this woman kept saying “tah-vee.” I guess it’s one of those British/American English divides…I just asked Marcus how to phonetically spell the “aaa” noise I make in “Tavi” and “apple” and he couldn’t do it because it’s not even a noise English people make. Just picture a sort of annoying nasally “a” noise.

  

The bulk of the museum was located on the first floor, and as I was keen to see the magic lantern stuff (Professor Heard from that Brompton Cemetery event last year fired up my enthusiasm for the medium), I headed to the film gallery first. This turned out to be two small rooms, plus a neat little cinema (I loved the wall decor) where you could watch short films starring puppets (dunno if this was connected to the puppet exhibit, or if they show them all the time).

  

The slides turned out to be all mounted together in a large panel that you could press a switch to illuminate. I think my favourites are the dog and cat in the fourth row from the bottom (they’re a little hard to see, but they’re dressed in people clothes, and the cat is reading a book), but there were enough entertaining slides that I stood there studying them for a good long while (longer than the light stayed on for anyway, I had to press it again). There were also a few thaumatrope and flipbook type things to play with, and some early silent films of the Brighton area to enjoy.

  

Next was a small room devoted to the history of Hove, which segued into an equally pint-sized art gallery. I didn’t spend too much time in the local history section, which was a bit wordy, even for me (plus I’m just not that interested in the history of Hove), but it seems like Hove was built up during the Regency period, same as Brighton. Also, Edward VII apparently liked to hang out in Hove when he was still the Prince of Wales. The art gallery had a few paintings in it that I quite liked (which is impressive, given that there were only about ten paintings in there), including a whole wall with a giant monkey painting.

  

The “Wizard’s Attic,” which was presumably aimed at children (though they’d have to be fairly brave children, as you’ll see once you get a look at some of the toys there), was without question my favourite gallery in the museum. The premise was that a wizard (pictured above) lived there (you had to be quiet so as not to wake him up), and he liked to collect and repair old toys. So the room was chock-full of Pollock’s Toy Museum style cases of antique toys of varying degrees of disturbing. I have to admit that I quite liked those George V, Queen Mary, and young Edward VIII (in his pre-Nazi sympathiser days) dolls, even if they were a bit creepy.

  

But their creepiness was nothing compared to those clown dolls pictured above. I’m positive if you let them into your house, they would kill everyone you cared about in the night, and wait until you woke up and saw what they had done before they killed you too. It’s a good thing the sensible Wizard has them contained behind glass. Tricycle boy there is a bit unsettling too…to be honest, there were a lot of shit-scary toys here. I’m not sure how much children would actually like this terrifying collection, but I loved it. It was like being in an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? or something (god, I used to love that show, but I had no idea it ran until 2000!  I must have stopped watching at some point in the mid-’90s).

  

The final gallery was devoted to different crafts and how they were produced – I’m not terribly interested in crafts, but a few objects did catch my eye, like the figure of Lucretia stabbing herself, above, a pumpkin teapot (which you may be able to spot in the photo on the above left), and some cute little monster dolls (below left).

 

I ended up spending less than an hour at this museum, which is fine because it was free, but it definitely felt like Brighton Museum’s less impressive little sister (which is kind of funny, because apparently Hove likes to think of itself as being posher than Brighton). It matched Brighton Museum’s eclecticism, just on a reduced scale (there was even a pavilion-y structure outside the museum that I think was some sort of war memorial). I really enjoyed the magic lantern slides, and the toy gallery, but the rest was a little hit-and-miss. I think it’s worth a visit if, like me, you’ve been to the area a lot and want something new to see, but if you’re only in this part of Sussex for a day or two, I’d just stay in Brighton and see the Royal Pavilion and Brighton Museum instead (and eat some ice cream! Scoop and Crumb or Boho Gelato are both good options), or maybe go for a walk at Devil’s Dyke (and then get ice cream!). I’d even recommend the Booth Museum over this one (if you’re into taxidermy), just because it’s so gloriously old fashioned. 2.5/5 for the Hove Museum.

 

Brighton, East Sussex: Brighton Museum

The Royal Pavilion shares the Pavilion Gardens with the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, so it made sense to pop over there directly after visiting the Royal Pavilion, especially as it is another National Art Fund friendly property, so we got free entry (£5.20 otherwise, but it is free for Brighton and Hove residents with proof of address).  Although it may appear that the Brighton Museum was originally part of the Royal Pavilion (because of the similarity in architectural styles), it was actually purpose-built in the 1870s, presumably to match the Eastern-influenced appearance of the Pavilion.  I’ve been to the museum a few times over the years, so this was a slightly speedy visit where I basically just passed through to snap some photos (or point to things so my boyfriend takes a photo of them, as is usually the way) and make sure things were more or less as I remembered them.

 

Like many local museums, the Brighton Museum is an eclectic mix of galleries, but it’s larger than your typical local museum, and pulls off the strange mix more skillfully than others, perhaps because it’s in keeping with the character of Brighton itself.  The museum opens with a hall of interior design, which features, among other things, a baseball mitt couch inspired by Joe DiMaggio, one of the famous (THE famous? Is there more than one?) Mae West Lips sofas, by Salvador Dali, and one of Grayson Perry’s vases.

  

Carrying on from the design gallery, you’ll come upon the Ancient Egyptian nook (this is the kind of eclecticism I was talking about).  It’s got your usual Egyptian stuff: some canopic jars, a few sarcophagi, etc, and also a mildly entertaining computer game (aimed at children) where you get to choose the tools needed to embalm a body, and then stuff the organs in their appropriate jars (harder than it should have been).

  

Because it is the Brighton Museum, there are of course a couple galleries devoted to local history, detailing how Brighton became a fashionable seaside resort town, info about life in Brighton during the war years, and also how Brighton came to be one of the most LGBT friendly places in the UK.  There were some nice seasidey touches in here, like one of those boards you stick your head through so it looks like you have the body of an Edwardian bather, and a couple penny arcade machines, though it was unclear whether you could actually use them or not (my guess is no, since they probably took old school pennies, but they were just kind of sitting out, practically begging you to try them).

  

I am kind of a nerd about old ceramics, so the “Willett’s Popular Pottery” gallery is definitely my favourite.  There are so many wonderful things in here, but the best had to be the “Red Barn Murder” figurines (I’ve tried to get my hands on a set before, but these are super rare and mega expensive.  This is the first set I’ve seen in person), featuring Maria Marten and her murderer William Corder, both as a smiling, newlywed couple, and then in front of the infamous barn, with William luring the innocent Maria inside to her horrible demise.  With a cow complacently chewing cud off to one side, which really makes it perfect.  This was just one small part of the crime-related pottery section (told you it’s an excellent gallery!), which also had figurines of Dick Turpin and one of his less-famous highwayman friends, among others.

  

I want to show you all the things, but I realise that others probably don’t share my level of interest in historical ceramic figurines.  But there was lots of great stuff here; not only slightly misshapen animals, but those Georgian mugs with cartoons printed right on them, and some of those old-school royalty mugs (before official photographs or portraits were used, and somebody just crappily hand-painted a generic looking bewigged man on them).

  

Although this was not my first visit to the museum, I think I’d somehow missed going upstairs in the past, because I did not remember these galleries at all (and I definitely would have if I’ve seen them).  The first was the Performance Gallery, which contained puppets and costumes from all over the world.  My two favourites are pictured above.  Poor George IV.  The guy just can’t catch a break.

  

Then there was the Ocean Blues Gallery, which I have to mention just so I can show you pictures of that sad shark and albatross chick (the chick was bigger than the adults they had on display, not sure how that works, especially when you look at the size of the egg it came out of.  Maybe there’s just a lot of downy fluff involved?).  I want to take that shark home and give him a hug, the poor thing.  This gallery mainly discussed pollution and its impact on the oceans, so it’s probably appropriate that the shark looked so lonely and upset.

  

The fashion gallery contained one of Fatboy Slim’s shirts, which my boyfriend was kind of excited about for some reason (I could never get into Fatboy Slim, maybe it’s one of those inexplicable British things?  I’m not even that sure who he actually is, since his videos seemed to only have other people in them (I’m thinking of that “Praise You” song that was big in the late ’90s, which come to think of it, is the only Fatboy Slim song I know of)).  It also had a cool naval coat, and some adorable albeit probably uncomfortable bathing costumes, but the strangest part was the collection of clothing associated with ’80s movements, like punk, skinhead, and goth outfits (fair enough), but also a queer-fetish-techno-punk outfit from 1998, which I didn’t even realise was a subgenre.  Where I come from, we just called them ravers.

  

Unfortunately, that amazing doorway no longer leads into a zoology gallery, but rather, the art galleries.  Since it’s mainly modern art in here, I would have preferred zoology (especially because that probably means taxidermy), but what can you do.  One of the canvases in here was literally just beige, and some guy was admiring it like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.  I will never understand that kind of modern art.

  

Back downstairs, I found another gallery I’d missed previously hiding in the corner, which was about different cultures from around the world, containing some cool objects from each of them (I liked all the Inuit stuff, though I don’t have a picture; I guess I didn’t point to it vigorously enough), and for some inexplicable reason, a foosball table (some family was already using it, but I didn’t mind so much because I am extremely terrible at foosball.  Give me an air hockey table or Skeeball over it any day).

  

I think the Brighton Museum is one of those rare places that I actually wouldn’t have minded paying for (though I’m not complaining that I got in free!).  I remember really liking it the first time I went (many years ago, before I even moved to the UK; it was the summer when I was backpacking through Europe and I spent a day in Brighton because I decided I hated London and I needed to get away. It’s funny how life turns out sometimes), and I still like it.  It’s not enormous or anything, but it’s big enough to kill a couple hours in, and varied enough that there’s something for everyone, especially if you like ceramic cats (don’t miss the giant one in the cafe!).  3.5/5.

 

Brighton, East Sussex: The Royal Pavilion

The Royal Pavilion is an amazing, confused conglomeration of excess, built for the notoriously dissipated Prince Regent (who became George IV) in the 1810s.  It’s probably the most recognisable building in Brighton, with its distinctive Indian-inspired exterior, and its even crazier Chinese-influenced interior.  And despite having visited Brighton a fair number of times over the years, the first time I ventured inside this behemoth was just a few short weeks ago.

For you see, admission to the Royal Pavilion is normally a princely £12.30, but it is a National Art Fund partner, so members get free access (even though they don’t advertise it anywhere in the building or online, which gave me a bit of a scare, but they honour it in person with no trouble), so this is the first time myself and my wallet were inclined to venture within.  Also, I was a bit worried it would be excessively touristy, but even on a Sunday, it wasn’t too terribly crowded.  I mean, we walked right in, and had no trouble strolling around the place relatively unimpeded (though it was unseasonably cold on the day of our visit, meaning most people wouldn’t choose to visit a seaside town, so your mileage may vary in nicer weather).

Now, although the Royal Pavilion has one of the most incredible interiors I’ve ever seen, and I’m anxious to share it with you all, they do not allow photography inside.  I get that they’ve done a lot of restoration work over the years, but I still feel like they could let you snap a few shots in the most impressive downstairs rooms without doing any damage, but eurgh, I don’t know.  Maybe it’s to encourage you to tell your friends to come see it for themselves, since you’ll have no pictures to show off (actually, after poking about on their website, apparently it’s the Queen’s fault.  I knew I was opposed to the monarchy for a reason).  An amble around the internet didn’t reveal any good photographs available for free use (just some drawings and copies of old postcards), so please click this link to the Royal Pavilion’s website where you can click room by room to check them all out, making sure to focus on the Music Room and Banqueting Room, which I will talk about below, because they are the best.

They offered us an audio guide when we entered, but I’m so used to declining things that I just said no, without even asking if it cost extra.  Judging by the number of people who had audio guides (i.e. everyone except us), it might not, but you still all know what my position on audio guides usually is.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t a tonne to read on the ground floor of the house, generally just a small sign per room, so I probably missed out on learning about the interior.  Fortunately, this was remedied to some extent with the help of the video room, wherein I learned that the Pavilion was built by Henry Holland on something of a budget, as George was still just a prince at the time, and his daddy had his finger on the purse strings.  However, once George III descended into madness for the final time, and Georgie Jr was made Prince Regent, he decided to expand and embellish with the help of John Nash, and went for this totally crazy British-Empire-meets-the-Orient design, inspired by his love of the Far East.  Later (skipping over William IV, who wasn’t around for long anyway), the staid Victoria rejected the palace as too louche for family living, and had everything stripped out of it and mostly transferred to Buckingham Palace, while she was busy lording it up at Osborne House.  When Brighton later decided to open the palace to the public, Victoria (to her credit) returned most of the furnishings, and sort-of-shoddy reconstructions were done to make up the rest of the interiors (they had some examples in there, they were pretty craptastic).  During WWI, the Pavilion went on to serve as a hospital for Indian soldiers and later, soldiers missing limbs, and then was finally properly restored after the war years, save for some minor setbacks in the 1970s and ’80s when there was an arson attack, and then one of the minarets collapsed, which destroyed the Music Room, but it is now back in all its glory.

And the Music Room was probably the best damn room in the whole place, save for maybe the Banqueting Room (actually, I did prefer the Music Room, because snakes).  Oh man, it was incredible.  Snakes and dragons all over the damn place (not real ones, obviously), crawling up the wallpaper, serving as curtain rods, and just generally awesomely slithering around.  The Banqueting Room was pretty baller too though, especially the chandelier, which weighs a tonne (literally), and is suspended from a large winged dragon.  Also of note was the Great Kitchen, which had fake palm tree columns, and a menu from one of the Careme catered banquets George hosted (also available on their website, but it’s too small to read on there), featuring an epic 68 dishes, plus 8 edible confectionery centrepieces (all the meaty stuff sounded pretty foul (sometimes fowl), but I would definitely tuck into a “great nougat, in the French style.”  Bring one to me now).

Even the Long Gallery, which we got to pass through several times on the way upstairs and downstairs, and back through George’s personal apartments (the whole thing was quite maze-like, and we only went the right way with the help of the ropes stretched all over the place), was neat.  It was full of creepily lifelike Chinese figurines and (guess what?) more dragons.

I realise it’s probably not possible with the way the place is set up, but they should probably make you see the downstairs rooms last, because I felt a little bit like Homer when he was given a tour of Mr. Burns’s house that ended in the basement (Homer: “Gee, it’s not as nice as the other rooms.”  Mr. Burns: “Yes, I really should stop ending the tour with it.”).  The upstairs rooms fairly paled in comparison to the splendours downstairs, but I did enjoy the museum-y rooms where I learned more about the restoration of the palace, and its time as a war hospital, and there was also a room full of caricatures of George IV, which were brilliant.  Victoria’s boringly restrained apartments were up here too, and according to their website, there was also a special bed with a tipping mechanism made for George when he was at his morbidly obese/gouty stage so he could get up more easily, but I somehow missed that detail when we were there (actually, that bed was downstairs, because if George could barely get out of bed, he certainly couldn’t climb stairs, but I still don’t remember seeing it).  Guess I paid the price for not taking the audio guide.

The palace also featured an enormous gift shop (not really anything in it I wanted to buy, but it was for sure big), and not one, but TWO cafes (probably technically a cafe and a tea room), but I didn’t see any millionaire’s shortbread (Brighton’s got too many good bakeries for me to want to eat in a museum cafe anyway), plus my stomach was already all set for some ice cream from Scoop and Crumb (it was a bit icier than usual, probably because it was still the off-season, but it didn’t stop me from eating three large scoops and promptly getting a stomachache). I don’t know if I’d still be as keen if I’d paid £12.30 for the Royal Pavilion (maybe if I’d had the audio guide.  If I’d paid, I’d definitely have taken the audio guide), since we walked through in under an hour, but for free, this was a fabulous outing.  I think this probably had my favourite interior out of any palace I’ve visited (which probably means I’m as gaudy and tasteless as George IV, but so be it), at least where the main downstairs rooms were concerned, and it was definitely worth seeing, at long last.  Still salty about my inability to photograph it (I should say Marcus’s inability to photograph it, because I never voluntarily take pictures) though.  4/5.

The Rest o’ Rye: Lamb House and the Rye Heritage Centre

  

What kind of a quaint English town would Rye be without a National Trust property on one of its famed cobbled streets? (I still can’t quite get over the idea of cobblestones being a tourist attraction, I guess because I really hate walking on them.)  Fortunately, Henry James, author of The Portrait of a Lady, The Innocents, etc. was once in residence here, in a fine red-brick Georgian house.  Despite owning a copy of The Turn of the Screw that I got free in The Times some years ago, I have still never gotten around to reading any of James’s books (shame on me, I should be more interested in fellow American expats I guess).  In fact, I probably know more about his brother William, a psychologist, due to Deborah Blum’s fascinating book Ghost Hunters, but that National Trust card has made me more adventurous, as all I have to waste is my time, so I figured why the hell not see Lamb House?!

  

Although if you’re not a National Trust member, I can think of six very good reasons not to see Lamb House.  As in, that’s how many pounds you’ll be wasting to look inside this ridiculously tiny property.  Well, the property itself actually seems fairly substantial, the problem is more that you’re not allowed in three quarters of the building, including the entire upstairs.  Only three rooms on the ground level of the house are open, plus a garden/cafe, which seems like a lovely place to have a tea, but if you’re not partaking, then it just means all the tea-drinkers stare at you as you try to look ’round the place.

  

To be fair, they did hand over three long fact sheets when we walked in, which is more than many larger National Trust properties have, so I left knowing more about Henry James than I did when I walked in, which can’t be a bad thing.  And about E.F. Benson, who was another writer who lived in the house after James.  Benson I knew virtually nothing about, other than his name sounding vaguely familiar.  Apparently he wrote Mapp and Lucia novels, though I’m still in the dark as to what those involve.  One of the rooms had about a million binders on the table (many of them duplicates) with more information about the property, so I suppose that was a plus too.

  

We discovered what appeared to be a pet graveyard outside; perhaps it was mentioned in one of those binders, and I missed it.  However, that pretty much concludes the list of interesting features of Lamb House.  It was way, way too small for the price, and unmemorable.  I’d definitely skip this one unless you’re a big Henry James fan AND a National Trust member (I don’t think James fans alone would be too pleased with the admission charge either).  It also seems like they have very limited opening hours, so odds are good it might be shut anyway. 1.5/5.

  

Rye is one of those historic towns that’s meant to be super haunted and all that jazz, with some inn called the Mermaid being a major stop for German tour groups (as far as I could tell); I saw the Mermaid featured on Great British Ghosts a while back, and much as I like Michaela et al on Springwatch, even she couldn’t sell me on what was sure to be a tourist trap.  But I am not immune to tourist traps, as proved by my visit to the Rye Heritage Centre.  At first glance, the Heritage Centre was nothing more than a glorified souvenir shop, with some kind of (undoubtedly overpriced) “Sound and Light Show” about the history of Rye housed inside, but their website drew me in with the promise of an old-fashioned penny arcade.  I LOVE penny arcades, as you may remember from my visit to Tim Hunkin’s superb Under the Pier Show a couple years back.

  

Though this was nothing like the glorious whimsy of the Under the Pier Show, being a pretty standard collection of old penny machines, it was free, and you got seven plays for a pound (which you have to exchange for giant pre-1971 pennies in a machine in order to play the games).  It was the usual mix of fortune telling devices, not-very-exciting games involving variations on dropping marbles through slots, and old mechanical models, but they did have a few machines that were listed as one-offs, including a machine from 1905!

  

What can I say?  It was cheesy, and a bit lame, but I enjoyed myself, and the place was absolutely deserted, which was a bonus (the weird thing about Rye is that it has the feel of a seaside town, without actually being on the sea (though it once was, as I learned at Ypres Tower), which does help to cut down on the crowds a bit.  Just wish they’d get some decent ice cream somewhere.  Movenpick doesn’t cut it, sorry).  Rye was a bit of a mixed bag, but it was fine overall.  Not somewhere I’d rush to return to, but if I ended up back here at some point in the future, I wouldn’t mind too much.  Anywhere that has a penny arcade can’t be all bad.

Rye, East Sussex: Rye Castle Museum and Ypres Tower

  

Why Rye?  Well, it’s near the seaside, and is within day trip distance from SW London (and takes you right through what I like to call the cherry belt: that glorious part of Kent and East Sussex littered with roadside stands selling bags of Kentish cherries far superior to anything you’ll find in the supermarket).  And, I miss American-style rye bread with caraway seeds; I especially like it toasted, with cinnamon and sugar, because it’s got kind of a sweet-savoury thing going on, so the name may have made me a bit hungry.  But it’s not as though the town of Rye is particularly known for its bread (in fact, I didn’t see a single artisan bakery, just “traditional” British ones producing some awful looking mushy white crap, basically a hot dog bun in loaf form).  What they do have is a castle, known as Ypres Tower.

  

First, I should clarify a couple potentially confusing things about the castle.  Coming off the back of so many posts about Belgium, you might be thinking that with a name like Ypres, the castle has some connection to WWI or Belgium.  It turns out it was once owned by a man called John de Ypres, and has nothing to do with Belgium at all.  Also, the actual castle is not the castle museum (as we thought at first); the castle is Ypres Tower; the castle museum is down the road in a nondescript building.  Also, though they’re all part of the same museum, the Rye Castle Museum (the nondescript thing) is free, but Ypres Tower is £3.  Now that I’ve cleared all that up, let’s crack on!

  

I could tell almost immediately upon entering Ypres Tower and having a peek around the ground floor, that it was going to be the kind of museum I like.  Old-fashioned, almost exhaustively educational in places (while still playing fast and loose with history, to include legend as “fact”), and above all, charming.  The castle had a number of uses over the years, from private residence, to defence, and finally as a prison, which were all reflected in the museum.  I was greeted by the alleged skeleton of John Breads (great name, especially coming from Rye), who famously murdered a local man in a case of mistaken identity (he was trying to kill someone he had a grudge against, but it was dark and he got the wrong man, which just seems careless), and was executed, then had his corpse hung from a gibbet.  There was also a delightful tapestry thing, made by local women, showing the history of the castle – my favourite bit was the distraught looking prisoner pictured above. In addition, there was an herb room hidden in the corner, with some explanation given of various medicinal herbs.

  

The steps leading to the first floor of the tower (and slightly beyond, to a garderobe, as I discovered to my delight) were uneven and a real tripping hazard, as we were warned by the man at the admissions desk (I did stumble on the edges of two of them, so he wasn’t lying), but led up to a room with cases of uniforms, pottery tiles, and some knitting done by those craftsy local women, as well as a large display about the history of smuggling in Rye.

  

Yeah, you can see what I mean from that picture about some of the history being exhausting to read.  Anyway, although Rye is now a couple of miles inland, for many centuries it was almost an island, surrounded by the English Channel, as I learned from the old-school lighted relief map in the centre of the room.  So it was a major port throughout the Middle Ages: even after silting occurred and one of the rivers Rye sat on changed course, meaning it was no longer on the sea, it continued to function curiously like a port town, and its economy depended heavily on smuggling, because it no longer had an influx of ships to depend on.  (Rye still has a definite seaside feel to it, as I’ll discuss further in my next post.)

  

There were some nice views out the side of the tower, even though we weren’t actually all that high up (as far as towers go, since there were levels above us), because Rye is built on a hill, and Ypres Tower is at the top of it.  After having a good look out the side, it was time to brave those uneven steps again (not as bad on the way down), and head down to see the basement gallery.

  

The basement was clearly the child-friendly area; as always, I was overjoyed that none were there, so I could try on ALL the armour.  And play with medieval weapons.

  

I clearly rock at firing a longbow (actually, I couldn’t have been an archer, going by the test at the museum.  I think you probably had to start practicing while your bones were still malleable, so your shoulders deformed in a useful way).  Anyway, I enjoyed this overview of medieval history; any time there is stuff to try on, I get way too excited about it.

 

Heading back outside, we turned right to walk through the garden, and reached the former women’s prison.  All prisoners were initially held within the tower itself in appalling conditions, but Elizabeth Fry, famed Quaker prison reform campaigner, visited the prison and convinced Rye to open a separate women’s prison, where the women had actual beds, fireplaces, and chamberpots.  It was still pretty grim, and involved eating a gruel-based diet, as the short projection inside the prison shows (keep your eyes peeled for the animated rat), but better than having to sleep in a pool of your own excrement!

  

Once we figured out that we hadn’t yet seen the Rye Castle Museum, which to be honest, didn’t happen until after we left Ypres Tower and consulted the free map we grabbed off the admissions desk, we headed down the hill to East Street, to see t’other museum.  This was pretty small, all one room, but hey, it was free.  There was a bit about WWI, and then just loads of glass cases with objects relating to Rye’s history.  I liked the pottery pigs, which are apparently a local thing (though no one seemed to have any for sale, not even a pottery shop we passed that had an array of other animals in the window; although there may have been some inside, they weren’t prominently displayed), because people from Sussex are apparently stubborn and “Wun’t be Druv,” which is to say they won’t be driven where they don’t want to go.

  

This was a fairly standard local history museum, and apart from finding some of the objects amusing, nothing particularly stood out to me, but if you’re looking to kill some time, you may as well stop in as it’s free.  I liked Ypres Tower a lot better, and though it was indeed very old-school, that’s kind of what I liked about it, and I don’t think 3 quid was a bad price (especially relative to what the National Trust are charging for their Rye property, more on that coming soon).  3/5 for Ypres Tower.  I wouldn’t make a special trip to Rye for it, but if you’re already here on account of the cobblestones (seriously, why are cobblestones a tourist attraction?!) or all the supposedly haunted stuff (or just because you hadn’t ever been to Rye and are running out of things to blog about, like me), it’s one of the better attractions the town has to offer (though that’s not really saying much), so is worth a look.