I don’t know about you, but as soon as there’s even a microparticle of spring in the air, my thoughts immediately turn to adventure planning. So, with the seaside sun out for the third day running, and the temps hitting the mercury-shattering six degrees (!), what better time to round up my 19 favourite spots for discovering little-known Brighton, some from my secret Brighton archives, and others featured in my book Secret Brighton to inspire your next weekend by the seaside.

19 secret places to visit in Brighton

These are overlooked places you won’t find on most tourist itineraries. This doesn’t mean they aren’t worth visiting or trying out – far from it. If you enjoy stepping off the beaten path, you’ll know that sometimes it’s these little-known, out-of-the-way discoveries that get to the heart of a place. So without further ado, let’s discover:

1 Explore Seven Dials, the ‘Notting Hill of Brighton’

The quiet, residential area of Seven Dials is overlooked by most visitors to Brighton, yet it’s full of charm and history. It’s home to some of the most beautiful houses in the city, and also within walking distance of central Brighton and Brighton seafront for evening strolls. You could easily spend a slow day in this area of Brighton alone.

If I was planning a weekend in Brighton, I’d make Seven Dials my base. It’s a leafy, compact neighbourhood that feels like a village with peaceful shady streets lined with historic townhouses, and lots of neighbourhood cafes, pubs and shops. There are even a couple of places for a culture fix.

You’ll find good coffee at Puck, Small Batch, and Stoney Point, and delicious Portuguese treats at Latina Deli. Culture-wise, you can browse Anna’s Museum of curiosities in a shop window or art in a phone box. There are lots of pubs nearby for cosy drinks – The Crescent, or The Cow – and small neighbourhood restaurants for dinner, such as this postage-stamp-sized Japanese restaurant called Murasaki.

Side point: A good way to discover Seven Dials is by wandering and weaving around the backstreets on my self-guided hidden walk around Seven Dials. If you’d like to do it, you can find directions and a map here. 

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2 This cool Airbnb hidden along a historic hove Mews

When the owner of this incredible AirBnb, Paula Barnes, spotted I’d included her place in my Brighton AirBnB guide, she got in touch to thank me. I took the opportunity to invite myself around for a proper look, to take some photos and get a feel for this special place.

This is one of my favourite Airbnb discoveries in the city so far (except for this houseboat) for its authentic charm and character. The best part? It costs just £120/night. It’s set within an 1860 mews/stable on Cambridge Grove, a quiet cobbled street in Hove, just off The Drive.

It has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and is decorated with quirky collected vintage treasures, colourful textiles and old paintings, and modern comforts as well, like a great shower, TV, Netflix, and comfy beds.

The piece de resistance is the kitchen, set inside a giant greenhouse. I love all the natural light flooding in, the plants, books, and vintage finds, which Paula is an expert at curating. Most of the features of this room are original, too, including the full-height glass ceiling, floorboards and lime-rendered walls.

Take the full tour of my secret Brighton AirBnB, here. 

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3 Anna’s museum, a collection of curiosities in a window

Sometimes it’s the smallest, quirkiest and most overlooked sights that offer the biggest clues about a place, the locals and their story. They’re often the most fun places to discover, too, taking you off the beaten path into streets and areas of a place you might not walk along otherwise. Anna’s Museum in Brighton is one of these kinds of places.

I stumbled on it by chance one Saturday day, on a detour up a side street to escape the shopping crowds in the centre of town near Churchill Square. It’s easy to miss though, as it’s not a museum in a traditional sense; more a secret shop window of curiosities – as I like to call it – that you stop to look at on a wander past.

Read the full story of Anna’s Museum, here. 

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4 Audrey’s Chocolates, a timewarp sweet shop in Hove

I’d like to share my best discovery yet, the most treasured shop with a heart you’re likely to come across in the city, if not the world, called Audrey’s Chocolates. The scene is set for this marvellous time-capsule chocolate shop with its roots in the 1920s in a charming, yet ordinary Georgian townhouse tucked down a Hove side street.

Outside, the façade is humble and inside it looks exactly as it did when the shop opened in 1961 by Mr William Pain – all panelled in oak, carpeted in red, with old 1960s glass cabinets full of handmade chocolates.

Side point: Believe it or not, Audrey’s Chocolates in Hove supplies the London food emporium, Fortum & Mason. Every chocolate they ship to London is made in a secret chocolate factory above the shop. Read the full story and find out where it’s located, here. 

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5 The little brighton beach Box Sauna-Spa

The Beach Box Sauna Spa is a unique outdoor bathing and authentic sauna experience here in Brighton. You’ll find it in my secret Brighton beach club. With its cosy beachside setting and a distant view of the Palace Pier, this is where you’ll find hardy locals and visitors in the know hang out. Open all year round, this little hidden gem is guaranteed to invigorate and refresh you in sunny months or warm the chilly cockles in winter.

Approved by the Swedish Sauna Academy, Beach Box Sauna replicates the traditional Scandinavian-style sauna experience. It features three wood-fired saunas – two set inside converted horse boxes and a new one made out of upcycled materials,  a plunge pool, cold showers and a fire pit. You can also enjoy various natural body treatments, try leaf whisking – a treatment which involves hitting yourself lightly with birch and oak twigs – ‘whisks’ – to promote better circulation,  or take a dip in the sea. I feel invigorated just typing this.

How it works: Sessions last two hours and you start with a cold shower* before hitting the sauna, which you stay inside until you feel like you want to cool down – you’ll know when. At this point, you come out, take another cold shower, and then either dip in the plunge pool or the sea. Repeat as many times as you can fit into your session! Around your second sitting, your sauna master will bring you any treatments you fancy. You need to save about 30 minutes of your two hours, to get changed and enjoy a bit of a post-sauna sit down.

Read where to find Brighton Beach Box Sauna Spa, here.

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6  vintage floor mosaics and ghost signs

Writing guidebooks to the unusual means I’ve trained my eye to spot all the little flourishes and details in a place that offer clues to the past. Other than old shopfronts and faded ghost signs, I’ve become particularly sentimental about vintage shopfront entrance mosaics. Like this one I found recently – isn’t she beautiful?

These beautifully tiled mosaic entrances were the height of fashion and sophistication in the 19th and 20th centuries and most shops and apartment buildings had one. I imagine nothing was fancier than entering a shop which displayed their name in this way. To me, they’re not just pieces of social history, they’re works of art a lot of skill and patience has gone into creating. I think they should all be preserved.

Side point: Since my first spot, I’ve been faithfully keeping an eye out for others, snapping them whenever I see one, which I’ve gathered together into this post. I’ve also included a handy map at the end of the post so you can plan your own treasure hunt.

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7 Duke of York’s, a vintage picture house with sofa seats

If there’s one building that stands out among the mishmash of architecture around Preston Circus, it’s the Duke of York’s Picturehouse, not only for the giant Can Can legs on its roof, but also its ornate Edwardian baroque-style façade. The Duke’s, as everyone calls it, opened in 1910 and is thought to be the oldest surviving purpose-built cinema in the UK, having operated for over 100 years continuously.

Today, the cinema seats 278 people, but in its heyday, it seated over 800 people and looked much different. There was a ticket booth between the main doors, where customers would buy tickets before going inside. There were also two shops to each side; one selling French pastries delivered daily by the ferry from Dieppe to Brighton’s West Pier; the other selling cigarettes, cigars and confectionery.

Today it’s a luxurious independent cinema, which has recently been refurbished and I highly recommend you pay a visit to it. There’s a balcony with some sofa seating, and you can even buy wine! Check the listings here.

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8 Blackout shop, if Aladdin had a shop in Brighton…

If you’re looking for a souvenir gift for that special, eccentric friend or family member, you need to discover Blackout Shop. It’s a carefully curated riot of colour and kitsch from around the world, all of it tamed within one of the dinkiest shops in the North Laine area of Brighton. Together with the low ceilings, and ambient lighting, it feels like you’ve stepped inside a fortune teller’s gypsy caravan bursting with shiny trinkets or a giant treasure chest dripping with sparkly jewels.

Everything you can imagine kitsch-wise is here – colourfully painted enamel plates, mugs, cups and bowls, beautifully weathered vintage tins from India, Mexican loteria cards, glittery decorated boxes of matches, pom poms, lanterns, hanging dolls and light-up rabbits, colourful candles, vibrantly scented soaps, key rings, notebooks, jewellery, not to mention cushions, bags, trays,  clothes, socks… I could go on. Until you can visit, they now have a website!

Take the full tour of Blackout Shop, here.

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9 A Buddhist village in Hove

There’s a mansion on Lansdown Road which passers-by might not know is home to a thriving Buddhist community! Walk up the drive and enter the lush gardens and you find yourself in a peaceful haven, the bustle of western road shops behind you. There’s a café, a bookshop, some meditation rooms, a shrine and the largest statue of Buddha in East Sussex.

Discover more on page 126 of Secret Brighton.

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10 a hidden city centre sanctuary

Hidden behind Preston Manor – a little-known manor house on the way into Brighton – is this historic walled garden I only discovered it after 15 years of living in Brighton. It was once a kitchen garden for the manor house and is open all the time for wandering. There’s a lily pond to discover and a pet cemetery in one of the corners.

Take the full tour of my secret garden in Brighton, here.

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11 camden terrace, Brighton’s most beautiful secret street

Like most Sussex towns, Brighton is filled with secret alleyways tucked between other streets. These are known locally as Twittens. This one called Camden Terrace is arguably the most beautiful – and surprisingly one of the least known and trodden. With its Mediterranean whitewashed houses and, it makes a nice detour from the main road into town from Brighton station. Discover more here and on page 200 of Secret Brighton. 

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12 Dog and bone gallery, art in a phonebox

When I researched these tiny listed buildings for my Secret Brighton guidebook they were dirty, derelict and covered in graffiti, so that’s how they appear in the book. They’ve since been newly painted the traditional bright tomato-red colour and turned into the Dog and Bone Gallery!

Discover more here and on page 280 of Secret Brighton. 

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13  secret collections at Brighton’s Natural History Museum

As Brighton’s most eccentric, off-the-beaten-path museum, The Booth Museum of Natural History is an unusual gem in itself, but it’s also the setting for one of the city’s most intriguing tours – which offers curious visitors the chance to see inside its ‘secret’ stores – filled with 1 million objects relating to the natural world that don’t fit into the museum cabinets.

Discover more here and on page 278 of Secret Brighton. 

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14 Old Ship Dining Rooms, a private bar in a smugglers’ tunnel

Deep underneath the Old Ship Hotel in a vast complex of old smugglers’ tunnels is this private dining room and bar. The rooms are mainly open for private dining events, but occasionally open to the public for cocktail parties. Discover more here and on page 310 of Secret Brighton.

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15 The mysterious London Road Stone Circle

London Road in Brighton is home to the starting point – or end depending on which way you approach it – of an art installation hidden in plain sight you may have walked over countless times without realising. Next time you’re in the vicinity, take a moment to look down and you might just spot one of 50 numbered stone paving slabs, set in a circle around the area as wide as the road is long.

Discover more here and on page 180 of Secret Brighton.

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16 A little-known walk around a Victorian burial ground

The Woodvale Cemetery is set on 15 hectares in the middle of Brighton but you hardly notice it, and it’s unlikely you’ll encounter another soul on a wander around. Follow the ‘Tomb Trail’ signs which take you along winding steep paths lined with ivy-covered gravestones, through wildflower meadows and into the newer part of the cemetery.

Discover more here and on page 162 of Secret Brighton.

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17 AN overlooked INNER CITY ORCHARD

Hidden from plain sight in the middle of a housing estate is this little-known orchard. It’s set in three acres of wild landscape overlooking Brighton, and has 200 fruit trees, which could reap around three to four tonnes of fruit a year!

Discover more here and on page 168 of Secret Brighton.

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18 Brighton’s last fisherman and his sculpture garden

Art galleries are ten a penny in Brighton, but there’s one with a twist to discover on Brighton seafront. It’s known as the Flint Grotto and it’s home to eight larger-than-life sculptures.

Some have a link to ancient mythology while others are inspired by Bronze and Iron Age art. One of the most recent additions is a sculpture inspired by the Venus of Willendorf – a 25,000-year-old piece of artwork considered to be one of the oldest and most famous surviving works of art in the world.

Another represents a Sumerian goddess cradling a child. There are also smaller non-figurative sculptures, such as a grave containing a skeleton, a throne and an entryway.

Read the full story, here. 

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19 BRIGHTON’S ‘SECRET’ SHOPS

By secret shops, I mean local independents that don’t get enough attention either because they’re not located on a main shopping street or are set off the beaten path in a residential neighbourhood. They also might be hidden on a side street, or along an alleyway. These are gems only people in the know realise are there. In any case, you’ll have to make an effort to seek them out, but if you follow along with my blog, I have a hunch this is the kind of activity you enjoy anyway.

Read the story here. 

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I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my favourite secret places to discover in Brighton and feel inspired to plan a weekend at the seaside. Do you have a curiosity in Brighton to recommend? I’d love to know! 

Want all of my Brighton secrets?

My collection of local secrets, insider advice and little-known urban anecdotes. It’s the ultimate guide to Brighton unknown. For my 15 or so years in Brighton, everything has been personally vetted, visited and experienced by me! Available for your bookshelf from the Ellie & Co Shop, here.

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