Brighton, Battle & The Red House

The View from our hotel room in Brighton

Well we have had a very up and down time over the past few days. We met up with our friend Helen in Brighton and had a great day but the day before was full of queuing and we will always associate Brighton with queues now.

After Brighton we decided to go to Battle and watch the annual celebrations for 1066 which included a battle with over 1000 participants. When we arrived we were told that the 10 minute bout of heavy rain and hail the day before had waterlogged the ground and the battle had been cancelled. However the British Heritage people were very good and we still got to go in for free and see Battle Abbey and the actual field which played such an important role in British history.

After that we went on to the Red House just outside of London to see William and Janey Morris's specially designed Pre-Raphaelite house. The exterior was charming and this particular day was the day of the apple festival so we were lucky enough to get to try apples from the trees which had been there in the days of Rossetti, Lizzie Siddal and Edward Burne-Jones. Inside though it is a sad place, stripped of any feeling of warmth by the fact that it contains only a couple of pieces of the original furniture which had been built in. If only the galleries which hold on to these precious things would let them go back I think this house would be transformed. Many of the frescoes that had adorned the walls were painted over later but there is enough there to get a feeling of what it may have been like in its heyday.

Carousel on Brighton Pier. I had to try the ghost train here too and found it slightly better than the one in Aberdeen but just as hilarious.