Cheeky Walks: Brighton Back Passages

Cheeky Walks in Brighton and Hove came out in 2012. I did a couple of the walks just after it came out, but didn’t get around to any of the others. An old friend suggested we get together for a walk on New Years Day and we decided to do the book’s Brighton’s Back Passages tour, which takes the reader around a tour of Brighton twittens.

The walk started at the Morrison’s in St James’s Street and soon showed me two passages on George Street that I’d never noticed, despite walking past them dozens of times.

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One of them had been decorated:

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The walk had been carefully planned and I loved how some of the alleyways opened up from what looked like dead ends. Being back alleys, all the passages were grotty and rubbish-strewn. At one point Ramsey the dog had to be carried over broken glass.

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The walk pointed out a few things I’d never noticed. The frame in the photo below used to hold a mirror to deflect sunlight into the workshop above.

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It’s interesting following a guidebook that is a couple of years old, because of the risk that landmarks have altered. The back passages walk was mostly unaltered, apart from one previously-decorated house near Regency Square being repainted.

The mispelling of ‘lane’ in the sign below has proved controversial, with a number of attempts to change itback proving unsuccessful. Laine is an old Sussex word for field.

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This door was painted when the barber’s opposite was used as a film set.

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We also saw a lot of street art:

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