Following our walk from Brighton pier to Marine Parade we planned to return to the pier on the Volks Electric Railway, however accessing the station proved problematic. All walkways to the station platform were blocked off due to regeneration of the area. Rather than walk a very long way round we decided to follow the example of a local jogger and scramble down a grassy bank.

From Wiki:

Volk’s Electric Railway (VER) is a narrow gauge heritage railway that runs along a length of the seafront of the English seaside resort of Brighton. It was built by Magnus Volk, the first section being completed in August 1883, and is the oldest operational electric railway in the world, though it was not the first electric railway to be built. It was preceded by electrification of Miller’s line in 1875, Werner von Siemens‘ 1879 demonstration line in Berlin and by the Gross-Lichterfelde Tramway of 1881, although none of these remain in operation.

Today the line runs between terminal stations at Aquarium (a short distance from the Palace Pier) and Black Rock (at Black Rock, not far from Brighton Marina), with an intermediate station and depot at Halfway.

The line has a 2 ft 8+1⁄2 in (825 mm) narrow gauge, is electrified at 110 V DC using a third rail, and is one mile (1.6 km) long.

St John the Baptist’s Church was the first Catholic Church in Brighton. The building of the church was funded by Maria Fitzherbert a wealthy widow from Shropshire who became the secret first wife of George, Prince of Wales who later became King George IV. The marriage was kept secret because at that time it was illegal for a Royal heir to marry a Catholic