Strike Factory

Have now added a new gallery for my museum tour, pictures from my adventures at Brighton, Hove and Crawley museum should hopefully be on this site the next 48 hours. Along with report on Crawley museum. Enjoy!

P.S I secretly wrote on the pier at Newhaven on Good Friday the Strike Factory link with chalk for the good residents of Newhaven when visiting.

Once I finished at the fine Hove museum it was off down to Hove’s larger than life twin sister Brighton to visit the fine cosmopolitan large museum they had. Welcome to Part 2 of Charles’s adventure in Brighton and Hove’s main town museums. 

Mode of transport: Rather than get a bus from Hove Museum I decided to walk all the way seeing as it was just straight up Church Road, Palmiera Squire and Western Road, and I would be at Brighton Museum in about 20-30 minutes by foot, but I came home by train via First Capital Connect from Brighton to Three Bridges then the Southern train to Ifield. Would have been mental to decide to walk 20 or so miles from Brighton to Ifield.

Visitors: Charles 

Location of museum: The museum appears to be in what was originally farmland that became royal’s property on North Street, with the museum being virtually in the grounds of one of Brighton’s most famous landmarks The Royal Pavilion. The museum itself is quite large, and is a fine 19^th century building. It is also near some of Brighton’s most notable theatres such as The Theatre Royal and The Dome.

Museum highlights:

• Like its smaller neighbour Brighton has a massive art section with international and local art, I found the hand sofa quite fascinating.
• There seems to be a good African culture theme exhibition going on at Brighton museum at the mo. I was fascinated by the Nigerian masks, and the Egyptian mummies.
• The Discovery room was very bizarre with a weird fireplace, and an equally quirky mirror, had I walked into the legendary Peter Crouch’s living room if so good taste Sir Peter.
• I love the room on Brighton’s history showing maps of how the town developed, old locals discussing their experiences of town life when they were younger and how they saw the town change, to the fine bikes and of course the special Brighton and Hove Albion section. SEAGULLS! Also the section on religion in Brighton was interesting ranging from Judaism to the Christian Korean Church.
• Good section on the Cosmopolitan culture of Brighton, featuring the clubbing and raving side of Brighton down the years, the Gay Lesbian side of Brighton and other stuff that makes Brighton a open minded caring and forward thinking city. It had some fine models of the early Royal Pavilion and the old Chain Pier.
• Upstairs was all about Brighton fashion and art, and included some of the African stuff common in the museum. Showing all kinds of outfits to astonishing the seemingly ordinary to some interesting Goth outfits.

Overall: By and far the largest museum I am likely to visit out of the 8 museums around Sussex as part of the challenge. Was interesting and curious and you could not seem to get bored more amazed. Great stuff. LOL

Next: Will be museum No.4 at creepy Crawley, found out about what is fascinating about this fine 'little' museum and the little known connection that Crawley has with Alice in Wonderland.

Next up for Charles was his spiritual home the fine legendary twin towns of Brighton and Hove, first Charles travelled to Hove Museum where Charles found there was more to Brightons quiet twin than he realised 

Mode of transport:  Good old Southern (no I am not a official promoter of Southern trains) trains served me well again, got the train to Three Bridges, then the train to Haywards Heath where my season ticket takes me to, for a return ticket to Hove, I then caught a train that took me straight to Hove. The museum was about a 5-10 minutes walk from Hove Station though Aldrington Station appears to be nearer (locals correct me if I am wrong.).

Visitors: Charles 

Location of museum and type of building: It is located near Hove Town Centre but seemed a sleepy part of Hove compared to the nearby town centre, on New Church Road, the building was a fine attractive large Victorian Villa.

Museum highlights:

* Current art exhibition on ground floor looked impressive with art ranging from impressive to very bizarre indeed

* The main museum areas were on the first floor, and I first went for the history of Hove section, where I came face to face with Hoves oldest resident (see pictures), saw it how it developed from the obsecure villages of Aldrington, Hove, Hangleton and Portslade to the posh attractive home of Sussex sports twin of Brighton that it is today.

* The toy museum section was quite good with a impressive collections of things ranging from cars to a sleepy old man. One of the countrys largest vintage toy collections in fact.

* There were craft sections showing stuff by local artists

* The cinema/ filming section fascinated me as I knew little of Brighton and Hoves importance in British/ world filming in the early 20^th century, it had lots of intresting objects connected with early filming such as different kinds of cameras, it showed pre world war I mini films or scenes shot in Brighton and Hove, and mentioned a lot in the life of a few major film directors that were based in Brighton and Hove before World War I. 

Overall: Was a nice museum and showed there was more to Hove than I thought it was, and learn’t some new stuff about the area. Was a good museum in good settings, and the staff were first class and were curious about my own site.