Brighton Palace Pier: Worth It?
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Brighton Palace Pier is worth 20 minutes of your time and none of your money on the food. Walk it for the Victorian engineering and the view back at Brighton’s skyline, then leave for dinner elsewhere. Since 2024 it also charges to get on, which changes the calculation for anyone who remembers it as free.
| Key facts | Brighton Palace Pier |
|---|---|
| Admission | £2 per person, March-September (free rest of year; free year-round for BN-postcode residents) |
| Rides | Extra, pay-as-you-go ~£5 each, or a wristband ~£25-32 adult |
| Hours | Roughly 10am-late, seasonal; check brightonpier.co.uk day-of |
| Time needed | 1-2 hours to walk it, browse, eat; longer if riding |
| Booking | Walk-up for entry; wristbands cheaper booked online |
The £2 charge most old guides still get wrong
The pier has charged admission since May 2024, its first entry fee since 1985. It started at £1, doubled to £2 for the 2025 season, and stays at £2 for 2026, running March through September. Outside that window entry is free, and it’s free year-round for anyone with a BN1, BN2, BN3, or BN41 postcode via the pier’s own Local Resident’s Card. If you’ve read anywhere that this pier is free to walk onto, check the date on that article: it’s out of date for six months of the year.
Skip the pier food, walk to Bardsley’s instead
This is the actual trap. The pier’s own fish and chip counters and arcade-adjacent food stalls are exactly what you’d expect from a captive seafront audience: fine, forgettable, and priced for tourists who won’t walk further. Ten minutes off the pier, Bardsley’s of Baker Street has been family-run since 1926, four generations deep, and it’s where Brighton locals actually send visitors for fish and chips. The one exception worth making on the pier itself is the doughnuts stand, family-owned for 30-plus years, made fresh to order, genuinely worth the queue.
The rides are extra, and that adds up fast
Getting onto the pier is now £2, but the funfair at the seaward end is a separate cost on top: individual rides run about £5 each, or an unlimited wristband costs roughly £25-32 for an adult (cheaper booked online in advance), £13-27 for anyone under 1.2m. A family of four riding pay-as-you-go can burn through more than a sit-down meal would cost. Decide before you arrive if you’re there for the walk or the rides, because the pricing rewards a plan, not a wander.
Palace Pier vs. West Pier: know which one you’re looking at
Brighton Palace Pier, officially that name since 1899, was built as a direct rival to the older West Pier, and it outlived it. The West Pier closed to the public in 1975, burned in two 2003 arson fires, and now stands as the skeletal ruin visible from the beach a short walk west, deliberately left up rather than demolished. That ruin, not this pier, is Brighton’s most photographed sight, and it costs nothing to see. If a photo is the goal, walk to the beach opposite the West Pier ironwork for the shot that actually gets used, ideally at sunset.
Getting there
Trains from London Victoria or London Bridge run roughly every half hour, taking about an hour to an hour and a quarter depending on the service, and Brighton station is a 15 to 20 minute downhill walk to the seafront. If you’re basing yourself in Brighton for more than a day trip, compare hotel rates near the seafront on Booking.com rather than booking the first sea-view listing you see, since prices swing hard between the pier-adjacent hotels and ones five minutes further inland.
The honest verdict
Walk it once for the history and the view, pay the £2 without complaint since it’s genuinely modest, and treat everything sold on it beyond the doughnuts as optional. The rest of Brighton, the Lanes, North Laine, the Pavilion, is a better use of a full day than a second lap of this pier. For where the pier fits into a wider trip, see the full Brighton guide or the ranked list of things worth doing .