Kemptown Brighton: the bohemian east side, village and Regency terraces

Walk east from the Palace Pier and Brighton's swagger settles into something gentler. The crowds thin, the seafront terraces turn cream and pale blue, and after a while you reach a stretch of shops where the butcher knows the regulars by name and the pub does not have a theme. This is Kemptown, the city's bohemian east side, and it is the part of Brighton that locals guard a little. Here is how the village fits the wider area, what to look for, and how the open-top bus drops you into it.

Where is Kemptown in Brighton?

Kemptown is the eastern quarter of Brighton, running from just east of the Palace Pier along the coast towards Brighton Marina. It covers the seafront, the shops and pubs of St James's Street and St George's Road, and the grand Regency terraces set back above the sea. The open-top bus reaches it at Stop 12, Paston Place, near the start of Volk's Electric Railway.

Geography explains a lot of Kemptown's character. It sits on the eastern flank of the city, climbing the slope between the seafront and the racecourse, so the light is different and the pace is slower than the centre. St James's Street is the busy artery just behind the pier, lined with cafes, corner shops and the heart of Brighton's LGBTQ+ scene. Further east, the mood turns residential and quieter, which is exactly why people who live here rarely feel the need to head into town.

What is the difference between Kemp Town and Kemptown?

Kemp Town, two words, strictly means the Regency estate of grand cream terraces laid out in the 1820s: Sussex Square, Lewes Crescent, Arundel Terrace and their neighbours. Kemptown, one word, is the looser modern name for the whole eastern district around it, including the village, St James's Street and the run down to the Marina. Locals use both, often interchangeably.

The estate came first. The developer Thomas Read Kemp gave the area his name when he commissioned a sweep of stuccoed terraces above the sea, designed to rival the grandest addresses in Bath or London. Over time the name spread outward from those few streets to cover the whole eastern side of the city, and the spelling drifted into one word for the wider district. So when someone says they are "going to Kemptown," they usually mean the shops and the village, not the private garden squares. It is a small distinction that trips up first-time visitors, and one worth having straight.

What can you do in Kemp Town village?

Kemp Town village runs along St George's Road, a low-key high street of independent shops, delis, bookshops, cafes and old-school pubs rather than chains. It is a browsing-and-coffee kind of place, best enjoyed slowly. Combine an hour there with the pastel terraces nearby and the seafront below, and you have a relaxed half-day away from the main tourist crush.

The village is small enough to walk end to end in a few minutes, which is the appeal. There is no single headline sight, so the pleasure is in the drift: a greengrocer, a couple of vintage sellers, a fishmonger, a bakery, and pubs that fill with locals rather than stag parties. St James's Street closer to the pier is busier and more mixed, and it carries a lot of the city's queer nightlife and cafe culture. If you want a sense of how Brighton actually lives, rather than how it performs for a day trip, this is the quarter to wander. The City Sightseeing bus reaches the eastern edge of it, so you can ride out, walk the village, and pick the loop back up when your feet have had enough.

What are the Kemp Town Regency terraces?

The Kemp Town estate is one of England's finest sets of Regency architecture: long, curving terraces of cream stucco built in the 1820s and 1830s above the sea. Sussex Square and Lewes Crescent form a vast oval with private gardens at the centre, and the scale is deliberately theatrical. You can admire the fronts freely from the street, though the enclosed gardens are private.

Stand in the middle of Lewes Crescent and the ambition is obvious. These were speculative grand houses aimed at wealthy Georgians who wanted the sea air with none of the seaside rough edges. The terraces sweep in a broad curve, uniform and pale, with the private lawns of the Kemp Town Enclosures dropping towards the coast. There is a literary footnote worth knowing: Lewis Carroll stayed regularly in Sussex Square, and a tunnel still runs under the road down to the seafront gardens. You cannot go into the private squares, but the architecture reads best from the pavement anyway, and it is a genuinely different Brighton from the fairground colour of the pier.

How do you get to Kemptown on the open-top bus?

The open-top hop-on hop-off bus stops at Stop 12, Paston Place, on the eastern seafront, which is the closest stop to Kemptown and to Volk's Electric Railway. From there it is a short walk uphill into the village or east along the coast. The full loop takes about 50 minutes, and one ticket also covers unlimited travel on Brighton and Hove city buses.

Paston Place sits on the seafront below the village, so plan for a short climb up to St George's Road. The stop is handy because it lines up two things at once: Kemptown itself, and the start of Volk's Electric Railway, the world's oldest operating electric railway, which trundles along the beach towards the Marina. If you are combining Kemptown with a seafront day, that is a neat pairing. Ride out on the bus, wander the village, take Volk's along to Brighton Marina, and loop back. Because the tour ticket also acts as a normal bus pass, you are not locked to the open-top timetable if the sea breeze turns cold.

You can see the wider picture on the route and stops guide, and if you are weighing it up, check live availability & prices on Viator before you travel. For the area itself, the official VisitBrighton guide to Kemptown and the Kemptown background on Wikipedia fill in more history than a bus stop allows.

Common questions about Kemptown