Restoring the Brighton Pavilion

Queen Mary was the patron of the first Regency Exhibition in the Summer of 1946. This was an important moment in the Royal Pavilion’s history when the public could see its rooms furnished for the first time. The success of the exhibition sparked the idea of returning the Royal Palace to its former glory. In 1950 Brighton Council celebrated one hundred years of ownership of the Royal Pavilion with a much larger Regency Exhibition – four thousand visitors a day paid half a crown to see the rooms furnished with items loaned from private and public collections. There were also royal loans, exotic items that had originally been part of magnificent interiors.