- Wheelchair access to the grounds, as well as the basement and ground floor (via lift)
- The disabled toilet is partly accessible, but quite small with insufficient space to turn round
Preston Manor
A historic manor house on the outskirts of the city. Decorated and furnished in Edwardian style with elegant ‘upstairs’ reception rooms and bedrooms and ‘downstairs’ kitchens and servants’ rooms. Entrance fee payable.
Access information:
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Address:
Preston Drove
Brighton
BN1 6SD
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Phone:
01273 292770
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Web:
www.prestonmanor.virtualmuseum.info
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Opening Times:
1 April - 30 September,
Tuesday-Saturday 10am-5pm, Sunday 2-5pm
Closed Mondays including Bank Holidays.
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Entrance Fee:
Adult £4.60
Child (under 16) £2.60
Family, 2 adults and up to 2 children £11.80
Concessions - Senior citizens, students and unemployed £3.60. Identification needs to be shown for these.
Disabled people also £3.60 and a carer can go free.
Brighton residents £2.30 proof required
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Getting There / Parking:
Preston Manor is an Edwardian Manor House, about 1 mile north of Brighton on the A23. It's on the corner of Preston Drove and Preston Road, and is at the top end of Preston Park. The nearest rail station is Preston Park. Assistance for wheelchair travellers would need to be booked in advance for this station.
There are frequent buses from Brighton which stop nearby.
There is a small free car park with a disabled space.
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Getting In:
Wheelchair users: There is a big flight of steps to the front door, and on the right of that is a post with a sign for disabled parking which has a bell on it to call for assistance. The day I went it wasn't working as unfortunately it had been vandalised, but staff do keep a lookout at the front and will come to your aid.
You are taken round to a separate gate and through a small garden to a door with a ramped entrance which brings you into the basement. From here you can view the basement and be taken in a lift to the ground floor. The top 2 floors, bedrooms and attics, are not accessible.
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Getting Around / Facilities:
The basement is a warren of rooms and corridors where most of the work of the house went on, cooking, laundry etc. I managed to see all of it as I had help with me, but I could have done most of it on my own. There are little ramps in the doorways, just one doorway didn't have a ramp and there are some sharp turns to negotiate.
Although the house is Edwardian, most of the equipment here is of Victorian origin. The ground floor is all accessible apart from a covered-in veranda and is again of great interest, with the rooms themselves and the furnishings, paintings and porcelain. There is a shop here too
The grounds are accessible, and the best way to get to them is to leave and make your way round to Preston Road and enter from there. The gardens are free, so you can just go there if you don't wish to visit the house. They include a walled garden and a pet's graveyard.
There is a toilet in the basement that is semi-accessible. It is not wide enough to turn round in, but it could be possible to back in and stop on the left hand side of the loo to transfer across. If you need to be in front of the toilet then you'll need someone to help with the door. As mentioned before, there is a lift between the basement and ground floor. Has a disabled toilet,wheelchair users can use the lift which locates them into the basement, they can only go to two floors with the wheelchairs even though there is four floors.
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Additional Comments:
One thing that sounds really interesting is the visits for school groups. The children spend a day as servants in Edwardian times, in costume, and doing lots of work cooking, washing and cleaning silver and boots. They have to behave impeccably, and a fierce butler makes sure they don't speak for the whole 5 hours.
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Reviewed By:
Pat
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Review Date:
May 2009, updated 10/3/2011 by Pappya
Published in
Attractions - Brighton
