Brighton Pink Plaques

Brighton Pink Plaques is your convenient personal tour guide to Brighton's LGBT past and the perfect companion during Brighton's LGBT History Month in February.

Do you live in Brighton or are planning a trip soon?
Do you enjoy learning about social history?
Would you like to discover some of the LGBT stories of the City of Brighton & Hove?

Brighton Pink Plaques isn't only an engaging treat for anyone interested in the LGBT history of the UK's queerest city. It is full of delightful stories of excitement, subterfuge, fun, protest and love - providing an unusual, affordable and rewarding way to enrich your experience of this vibrant city.

If you have walked down its streets today then you will know that there's plenty to see but there's a rich history below the surface and Brighton Pink Plaques will help you uncover it for less than the cost of a cappuccino.

The app is packed with stories, photos and facts from the "Walkie Talkie" tours of Brighton-based author and local historian Rose Collis. Since 1985, her features, interviews and reviews have appeared in over 30 publications on both sides of the Atlantic, including The Independent, The Times, TV Times, The Bookseller, Time Out, City Limits and Tribune. Her tours have featured in a number of festivals and annual events, including

• The Brighton Fringe Festival
• Brighton & Hove Open Door 2009 & 2010
• Winter Pride
• The Word
• Brighton Libraries’ series of ‘Encyclopaedic Knowledge’ local history events in 2010
• Events for ‘JourneyOn’ and VisitBrighton.com.

After downloading Brighton Pink Plaques you will know the hotel where Anne Lister had a dirty weekend, the pub at which a certain pop group's manager, Brian Epstein, quaffed and which gay bookstore owner was prosecuted for stocking 'obscene' material. It's even possible if, unfortunately, you live far from this exciting city.

Brighton Pink Plaques features:
• three themed tours written by acclaimed writer Rose Collis
• 73 virtual plaques across the city
• text, address, photograph and web site (if appropriate) for each plaque
• each plaque location displayed on the app's map
• create personal tours by grouping existing plaques to suit your interests
• sort the tours by theme or estimated duration
• configure your walking speed and time spent at each plaque
• get walking directions via Apple Maps integration
• respects your preferred font size
• supports landscape orientation
• enlarge photographs for more detail
• VoiceOver integration

Rose has provided three tours; "Hotels", "Cafes and Shops" and "Pubs and Clubs". The information for some plaques may simply be factual, but many have intriguing and frequently surprising and occasionally hilarious anecdotes about the lives of the city's famous residents and visitors and the places at which they stayed - and who they stayed with!

Using the app, you can set off along the city's pavements taking in all a tour's sights (stopping now and then for refreshment of course!), perhaps using any accompanying website link to see what happens there now, rather than 60 or more years ago and wonder at the lives of people laughing, protesting, working and loving all those years ago.

In the UK, Blue Plaques on a building denote a historical significance. We felt that these virtual Pink Plaques would be a great way of commemorating the wonderful LGBT history of Brighton. Maybe one day there will be physical ones too ...

If you enjoy using Brighton Pink Plaques then please leave a review; if not, contact me! Thanks.