I see no comments on the busy days of Pool Valley or the Brighton Swimming baths nearby in days gone by ? What about the lines of coaches and charabancs going to exotic places like Steyning and its little museum of curiosities, or maybe just a daring mystery trip for 1/6 to include a tea? But above all the paddle steamer trips to Worthing Pier, tides permitting. Do the Brighton Deep Sea Fishermen still exist?

The centre of Brighton has been rather shadowed by the Prince Regent's Royal Pavilion. For many years, as I understand, the area where the palace now stands was once common ground and fields. There have been remains of an ox found when the path running through the West Lawn of the Royal Pavilion Gardens was laid out in the 1990's. The Brighton Dome itself is rumoured to stand on a Saxon cemetery and not a good one at that. The Royal Pavilion Gardens has some very important plants growing around it's lawns, namely the elms. The town's first park was laid out in what is now the West Lawn. An old gnarled English elm with an iron brace imbedded in it can be seen by the south path. This tree is one of the first amenity trees to the town. It was planted as a small avenue walk in the Promenade Grove in the 1770's. This grove was the town's first amenity gardens. Other notable trees include the notorious Weeping Wych elm on the south side of the Dome. It appears in pictures dated to 1902 and may have been planted to commerate the new century in 1900. Another English elm near the Pavilion Theatre rose to international fame when it fell on two telephone boxes in 1987's hurricane. One Lobel elm near the Gardens' Cafe was known to be Britain's tallest example in the 1990's. The Fountain Gardens in the Old Steine used to possess a very important stone circle, until the Dolphin Fountain took its place. Some of the stones can be seen at the base of the dolphins and on the north edge of the fountain's perimeter. Furthermore it is said that boats used to come right up to what is now the Taxi Rank in East Street. This happened in the late 1700's when smugglers met at the Sussex Arms. There is much information to be found in Brighton town centre and to this day I am still finding it.