Royal Pavilion, Brighton (must see)

George, Prince of Wales, turned 21 in 1783. He liked living large. He had debts. He had gout. His doctor recommended a spell at the seaside. Fresh air, ocean views, just the thing. George took a trip to Brighton and found an erstwhile farmhouse, a kind of pavilion, a perfect bucolic retreat. He settled in with his friend, Maria Fitzherbert.

In 1787 Prince George commissioned architect Henry Holland to enlarge the building with the aim of creating a Marine Pavilion. Holland created a rotunda with a breakfast room, a dining room and a library done in the French neoclassical style. In 1802 a new dining room and a conservatory were added.

A riding school and stables done in an Indian style, much bigger than the Marine Pavilion, were built in 1803-1808. There was a hiatus in building until 1815 when Architect John Nash redesigned, enlarged and extended the Pavilion. His is the work that one sees today.

The palace is in the middle of Brighton. The exterior can best be called fanciful Indian-Islamic. The imaginative interior designs are mostly by Frederick Crace and decorator Robert Jones. The primary influences within are Chinese, Mughal, Islamic and Hindoo. Altogether an exotic masala and a bouncy alternative to Regency.

Prince George eventually became George IV, King of Britain in 1820. He died in 1830. George's successor, William IV, also stayed at the Pavilion on his visits to Brighton. Queen Victoria did not like Brighton and she got little privacy at the Pavilion. She claimed, "The people here are indiscreet."

The Royal Pavilion was sold to the town of Brighton in 1850. The purchase by the Town triggered the attraction of the Pavilion as a tourist mecca. Looking at the Pavilion today, one might be reminded of the opening of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem, KUBLA KHAN: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree."