This piece was commissioned to accompany The Queer Beach exhibition, in the foyer gallery of Jubilee Library 29 January–11 February 2024, curated by the Socially Engaged Art Salon.
Studies have shown that spending time by the sea is good for our sense of wellbeing. The vast expanse of water, with little else, is emotionally restorative. When combined with sunshine, relaxation, and friends, the enduring popularity of the seaside is obvious.
The sense of freedom associated with the coast has long been a draw for LGBTQ+ people too. Where better for those who can feel on the edge of society to be themselves, than literally on the edge of the land?
Since the opening of the London to Brighton trainline in 1841, Brighton & Hove has become a popular destination for relaxation, recuperation, and recreation. Even before that date, records exist of same-sex escapades taking place on our seafront.
In 1822, George Wilson met a guardsman in the Duke of Wellington pub in Pool Valley just off the front. We know this because, unfortunately, he made the papers and ended up in prison when he offered the soldier money to “commit an unnatural crime” on the beach with him. Soldiers at that time were known to make money on the side with a little light prostitution, so you can’t blame George for trying his luck!
On a jollier note, the decoded diaries of Anne Lister (aka Gentleman Jack), records her and her lover Mariana Lawton staying at the Royal York Hotel in the Old Steine in 1826. They spent three days waiting for a boat to France. During that time the couple walked the “delightful” promenade and viewed the “beautiful” Suspension Chain Pier. They also passed the time in other ways: “Good kiss last night. Got into bed again this morning for half an hour and had another kiss.”
After taking a dip in the sea was declared good for your health, the Victorians introduced segregated bathing. Everyone knows about the huts they used for getting in and out of the sea, but far fewer people know that Hove had its very own Men’s Beach*.
Daring Hearts by Brighton Ourstory is an amazing record of lesbian and gay lives in the city in the 1950s and ‘60s. In the book, author Peter describes the Men’s Beach as “notoriously gay”. Grant goes on to say,
“It was men only. There was nothing in the rest of the country to compare. Of course, they never went in the sea; they never got their beautiful bikinis wet. If you went far enough down, there was no such thing as wearing any clothing.”
There were also many pubs down on the beach that attracted a rather queer clientele. Grant remembers:
“The Fortune of War and the Belvedere were mostly used by the very big butch lesbians that really looked like navvies, with bovver boots, suits, and chains.”
In July 1973, the Sussex Gay Liberation Front staged Brighton’s first Gay Pride and used the beach for a couple of events. On the Friday night before the march, there was a midnight gay wedding between John and Graham to the west of the Palace Pier, and a gay picnic in the same location on the Sunday afterwards.
David Maplesden attended the picnic along with “Kay Ashton, who liked to be known as ‘the transsexual from Manchester'”. He remembers her hair went a funny colour after a dip in the sea because “the water must have been polluted or she used cheap dyes!”
The West Pier closed completely in 1975 after falling into disrepair. Throughout the 1980s and into the ‘90s, the area found a new use. In Brighton’s Seaside Stories from QueenSpark Books, ‘Piers’ tells how:
“The decaying arches under the West Pier were a hotbed of action.” He narrowly escaped arrest after the police arrived one evening with torches. “The arches were boarded up after that, spoiling our fun.”
The beach itself has, on occasion, become a political space. In 1988, as a direct response to Section 28, the first day of the Conservative Party conference in October was met by a sunset protest on the beach in front of the Grand Hotel. As the sun went down, the protestors lit flaming torches.
The organisers, Lesbian and Gay Spirit Rising, said in advertising literature:
“With one voice, as one people, as a single wave inevitably crashing on the shore, we say to you that our time for freedom has arrived.”
In 1992, Brighton Area Against Section 28 organised a Queer on the Pier event as part of Pride. The pier was notoriously rough at that time, not made any better by the News of The World whipping people into a frenzy about the “11-day gay bash,” in a none-too-subtle call to action.
One official gathering spot open to anyone who likes to bare it all is, of course, the Naturist Beach, tucked away down the Kemptown end. Being the first nudist beach in the UK when it opened in 1980, it caused considerable controversy. Local Tory councillor John Blackman described it at a council meeting as a “flagrant exhibition of mammary glands.” Whatever your position on mammaries… the beach has always had a significant LGBTQ+ fan base.
Even before the nudist beach arrived, that area was popular, as Janine says in Daring Hearts:
“I used to come back to Brighton with various girlfriends. I knew all the pools, Black Rock pool and everything and the beaches round there, and I used to take all my gay friends down there, and we’d have a marvellous sort of day.”
Close by and considered by some to be clothing optional as well, is the heavily shrubbed Duke’s Mound. Generally known as ‘The Bushes’, this is a long- standing cruising area for those with a taste for outdoor adventures.
Adjacent to that, and much preferred in poor weather conditions, is the ‘Temple of Love.’ Built in 1935, it was originally constructed as a reading room for locals. Many things have been picked up here, but paperbacks would not be among them…
Brighton & Hove beaches have never been exclusively for family fun. We have queered the pebbles and beyond with our protests, our pride, and our passion.
*There was a Men’s Beach prior to the one in Hove. The photo below comes from ‘Victorian and Edwardian Brighton from Old Photographs’ by John Betjeman & J. S. Gray. The caption reads:
The Men’s bathing beach just east of the skeleton of the Palace Pier, c. 1895. Free bathing was then permitted only from certain designated public bathing places before 8am and after 8pm.
