PART II - CASE STUDY 2.1
Early development of the beach resort of Brighton, UK
Early development of the beach resort of Brighton, UK
The development of Brighton illustrates very well the key factors that often shaped the process of early resort development, in particular: the role of patronage; the impacts of transport on accessibility; the importance of investment in resort infrastructure and the shaping of an emergent tourism industry; and the progressive widening of social accessibility.Patronage was an essential part of the early establishment of Brighton as a sea bathing resort. In the early 1750s, a Dr Richard Russell – a local man who had gained a national reputation as a specialist in the use of sea water treatments for common illnesses – opened a practice in Brighton. Russell’s reputation attracted a small but growing clientele of wealthy patrons to the town. Initially the majority of visitors came for treatment but, as was the case with inland spas, sea bathing resorts also acquired a reputation as fashionable places of leisure which, through time, became the dominant attraction. The most influential patron of Brighton was the Prince of Wales (later King George IV) who first visited the town in 1783 and who continued to make annual and extended visits until 1827. The presence of the Prince and his entourage helped to position the resort as an exclusive and fashionable place to which, through time, a widening range of visitors would aspire.
However, for Brighton to develop from the small and exclusive place that was patronised by elite Regency society to the popular resort that it became, required improved accessibility, new infrastructure and local reorganisation of the resort as a place of tourism. Initially, access to Brighton was dependent upon stage coach services, most of which were slow and of very limited capacity. However, the opening of the railway from London in 1841 exerted something of a transformative effect: by reducing significantly journey times to the resort; lowering the cost of travel; and increasing dramatically the number of visitors that could be transported by a single journey. Hence, by 1850, the total annual number of visitors to Brighton was put in excess of 250,000 people, most of whom came by train, often travelling on the new, cheap excursions. As visitor levels rose, the provision of new infrastructure to meet their needs quickly became evident. The Regency phase of Brighton’s development had seen some physical development of the town: through the construction of hotels; through the laying out of public spaces along the seafront; and through the building of new areas of exclusive housing for the visitors, as well as cheaper housing for the growing population of permanent residents that were necessary to sustain the resort and which had risen to over 65,000 people by 1851. |
By the middle of the ninteenth century the level of visiting to Brighton and the rising demand by middle-class tourists for staying holidays stimulated concerted programmes of development and reorganisation. Central to this process was a major programme of large hotel construction that included Brighton’s famous Grand Hotel (1864), but which also included the West Pier (1868) and the Brighton Aquarium (1871). In keeping with the new taste for entertainment at the seaside, facilities such as the piers as well as many of the older, established theatres began to display many of the attractions that are now widely associated with the Victorian seaside but which at the time bore the key attribute of novelty. These included military band concerts, music hall acts, black and white minstrel shows, pierrots and, later, amusements and fairground sideshows. Many of these new attractions reflected the tastes and preferences of the working classes who, by 1900, formed a particularly prominent group of visitors to the resort.
This widening of social accessibility that is characteristic of early phases of resort development had important implications for reworking both the temporal and the spatial patterns of resort-based tourism. After the death of King George IV, both William IV and then Queen Victoria continued for a while the royal tradition of visiting Brighton. However, once the railway began to open the resort to large-scale visiting by middle- and then working- class tourists, the elite groups soon adapted their patterns, either in favour of visits outside the popular summer season and/or to places (such as neighbouring Hove) that still retained an air of exclusivity. This process of social displacement has been integral to the wider diffusion of resort-based tourism and is a recurring theme in the development of both domestic and international geographies of resorts. Sources:
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