Once upon a time there was a prince who liked to go to the seaside. One of his favourite uncles lived in Brighton, and George found the seaside resort very much to his taste. He rented a rather pleasant farmhouse, Brighton House, from a member of his staff, and later entered into a lease that let him make the changes he wanted.

The architect he chose, Henry Holland, built a rotunda over the grand dining room, and added a new wing. Brighton House became Marine Pavilion.

But it didn’t stop there. Next came extensive stables, with room for 60 horses. The stables were even bigger than the house.

But soon, that wasn’t enough. I guess the prince was having fun. The interiors were originally neoclassical, but the prince was soon having them all converted to the new oriental style, and then he had some even grander ideas. The original architect built on again, adding more rooms, but that still wasn’t enough. By 1815, a new architect, John Nash, was working on the building we have today–little is left of the first two incarnations of the building, apart from the room under one of the new domes, once the dining room, then the grand saloon.

The building was finally finished in 1823, and by then our prince was king, and too busy for more than two more visits to the farmhouse that grew.

***

I was looking into this because I had my heroine in my latest book visit the Royal Pavilion, and I suddenly thought to check whether it had been built yet. It hadn’t. It was still the Marine Pavilion.