Park Life

Everybody associates Brighton with the seaside, but I often think the real glory of our city is its parks - broad Victorian spaces that our forbears dedicated to the pursuit of wholesome and Godly leisure on the Sabbath, and are still loved more than a century on. Here, Preston Park spreads out in front of Eugenius Birch's clock tower, donated to the city by Edward White, town councillor and justice of the peace; the first clock tower in the world to be constructed in terracotta. Contemporary accounts relate that following its opening in June 1892 the national anthem was sung and the town councillors took part in a cricket match in the park, followed by a banquet hosted by the Mayor.

History can provide reassurance. It did today.