First BikeShare docking stations

East of the Palace Pier.

Between now and early September 50 bike share docking stations are being installed around the city. Their locations are:

Imminently:

• Brighton Centre (Odeon cinema)
• Brighton Palace Pier (seafront)
• The Grand Hotel (seafront)
• Hove Lawns Café (seafront)
• Madeira Drive (Yellowave)
• Metropole Hotel (seafront)
• Peace Statue (seafront)

From 10 July 2017:

• Brighton Station (Surrey Street)
• Edward Street
• George Street (Hove)
• London Road (opposite Baker Street)
• New England Street (Sainsbury's supermarket)
• Old Steine 
• Preston Park (Preston Road)
• Seven Dials (Vernon Terrace)
• St James Street (Kemptown)

From 17 July 2017:

• Hartington Road
• Hove Town Hall
• Western Road

Locations for the rest of the 50 stations will follow. 

The scheme is operated by Hourbike for BTN BikeShare in association with Life Natural Spring Water. It will offer 450 smart bicycles with built-in GPS and wireless capabilities. Users will be able to locate and rent “Life Bikes” locked in any location across the city via an app, or online. Riders can return bikes to any docking station or lock them up at any legal location around the city.

Brighton & Hove is the first UK city bike scheme to feature Sobi smart bikes, a high-tech brand used in New York, Portland and Santa Monica. Other local businesses are now being invited to sponsor the bikes with packages ranging from £5k to £50k. 

Passacaglia postscript

'Passacaglia' 

The existing 'information' plate

It is poignant to consider that it won't be many years now before Charles Hadcock's 20thC tour de force cradles an empty patch of sea. In the meantime a legible information plate might underline its status in the world of art and satisfy the curiosity of interested passers-by.

The location on the beach is vulnerable to both extreme weathering and casual vandalism.  It suggests the use of cast or engraved bronze firmly anchored into a concrete base.

See also: Passacaglia & Fugue.

Dolphin Cottage

This cottage is thought to have parts dating from c1720. It could thus be said to vie with Puget's Cottage for being the oldest in the Old Town were it not for later alterations. These could naturally arise if it has been in continuous occupation and so being gradually upgraded to meet changing needs and whims. It was grade II listed in 1996.

It was originally a pair of cottages and part of a terrace running northwards. It may never have had street frontage but have been in a back court with twitten access. Brighton once had many such properties now mainly gone. It is now completely embedded behind later buildings with no public access.

The front wall is in English Garden Wall bond, three rows of stretchers to one row of headers. This was used from the late 18th century onwards, and very rarely found on buildings outside the north. The roof appears to be of slate.

It has two horizontally sliding sash windows which first made an appearance in the Georgian era. They are also known as "Yorkshire windows" due to their origin. Coupled with the particular brickwork in makes one wonder if a northerner once owned the property.

Dodgy dodgems

RP&M image store

A photograph taken just over a year after the end of WW2 shows a miniature race track at the shore end of the West Pier. 

These differed from conventional dodgems which pick up electricity from an overhead metal mesh and return it through the conductive rink surface. 

On the West Pier the stadium-shaped track was made of wooden planking separated by narrow metal strips. These strips were of alternating polarity across the track and so provided 'go and return' paths for electricity. Brushes under the cars were spaced across an odd number of planks to contact the metal strips and supply power to the electric motors. Contact tended to be intermittent and there was much sparking when the cars veered across the track; which all added to the excitement. 

I have no idea what voltage was used but at that time direct current motors would have been the norm and much of Brighton was still on a 230V direct current supply. Nevertheless, the attendants used to walk across the track with apparent impunity. Perhaps they had rubber-soled shoes. 

The new RSCH - video visualisation.