5. View from the pond

Where am I?

The pond is on the east side of the Royal Pavilion. As this area of the gardens is closed, you can view this from the street on the other side of the fence.

Transcript

Now you’ve got here, consider your view of the Pavilion. There are all its domes, its pillars, its minarets, but I think the Pavilion can be hard to really see. You probably recognise this view from seeing it a dozen times already, in the search engines, in advertisements and brochures. It’s the iconic image of the city, if a city can be summed up by a single image. But what does it mean to you? Is it the quirky extravagance of Brighton? Is it an artefact of a former age? Does it make you feel like you might not really be in England at all? The truth is that we sometimes build buildings so we can stay put and sometimes we build buildings so we can travel to other, more exciting places. The Royal Pavilion surely was built for travel, rather than staying put.