- Sherlock Holmes, secret smugglers, and the Seven Sisters.

It is time to get curious about Sussex.

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(bright music) - From charming thatched cottages to a medieval fairy castle to this glamorous, exotic royal palace, with a couple of curious dragons, it is time to get curious about Sussex.

Sussex is an historic county in southeast England, and means land of the south Saxons.

In fact, this are was once known as the kingdom of Sussex.

And this ancient region is still awash in natural beauty and mystery.

From its rolling green hills to those iconic chalk cliffs overlooking the English channel.

But there is some curious man-made beauty here too.

Including a castle fit for an important duke and a royal palace fit for a flamboyant king, that is just as unique today as it was when it was built in the early 1800s.

And sometime along the way, areas of Sussex also developed into lavish seaside resort towns, complete with Victorian beach houses, those iconic colorful beach huts, and of course Brighton's historic piers.

So here's what I'm curious about in Sussex.

Who built a decidedly Asian-looking royal palace in England without ever having traveled to Asia?

What is so sneaky about this darling pub?

Where can you find the home of seven sisters who chose a pretty precarious place to live?

Why is there a tunnel underneath this medieval village?

Wait, it is really medieval?

When was this castle built, and who received it as a gift?

Nice gift.

And how is this dragon holding up this giant chandelier, and who wouldn't sit under it?

Who, what, where, why, when, and how, so much to be curious about in Sussex.

We begin our curious journey into Sussex at perhaps the most curious spot of all, beautiful Brighton, a fashionable seaside retreat for centuries.

And it was the beach that attracted a certain plump and proud king to Brighton, who was told by his doctors to take in the airs and the waters here.

So he did, and liked the area so much that he decided to build his palace here.

But it was, and remains, a palace like no other.

In fact, it's not even called a palace.

May I present to you King George IV's Royal Pavilion in Brighton.

Inside, the main entrance is meant to look like a bamboo courtyard, which has a lower ceiling.

So when you enter the main dining room you get the full dramatic effect that the designers intended.

To guide us through all this beauty is historian and author, Alexandra Loske.

What was the reaction his guests had, perhaps when they came from the main area and then entered into this room?

What did they think?

- Well, we have some contemporary accounts.

We have some people reporting back in letters and diaries having been to a great banquet here.

And it is this sense of awe, of being transported to another world.

And of rooms like this being almost an assault on all your senses.

- It is, it really is.

The entire pavilion, inside and out, is meant to look Asian.

Indian on the outside and Chinese on the inside.

And yet, there's an interesting story about that.

None of the architects or artists had ever traveled to the Far East, nor had the king.

- We have things like you see in this room, which were created to look vaguely Chinese, but all of them done by European artists and then embellished with these amazing chandeliers ornamented with dragons.

And they're supposed to look Chinese but actually these are Welsh dragons.

Because the person who had designed the chandelier had never been to China.

- [Christine] Next in the curious history of this curious palace, after George IV the Royal Pavilion stays within the royal family for years.

All the way through his niece, Queen Victoria.

She and her family even lived here for a while, but she eventually decided to sell it.

However, she was apparently rather fond of its contents.

- So she builds that wing of Buckingham Palace that most people see.

Most tourists come through and they see that sort of East wing.

And she had to furnish it with something.

- Oh, so that's where it, okay.

- So, here was the Royal Pavilion, everybody assumed it would be demolished.

So she sold it to the Cooperation of Brighton, the people of Brighton, the entire estate, and she took everything you could possibly take with her.

She liked the optics.

- [Christine] By chance, the thing we're looking at right now, left here, went to Buckingham Palace-- - Everything went to London.

First to Kensington Palace and then used in Buckingham Palace.

But she also gave a lot of things back.

For example, this magnificent chandelier.

- Oh yes, this chandelier is definitely magnificent.

One of the largest, heaviest pieces in the Pavilion.

It dangles above the formal dining table.

And if you can see all the way up to the top, there's that Welsh dragon.

And here's the funny part.

There's a story that during the time of George IV, when guests dined here, no one really wanted to sit directly under the chandelier.

Especially if that guest got a bit tipsy.

They worried that the dragon might drop the chandelier.

Other stunning rooms in the Pavilion are the Circular Saloon, all decked out in vivid reds.

And a connecting long hall leads to the glorious music room, where grand balls were held.

High above the dancing guest's heads are nine more chandeliers, each shaped like a lotus, an important Buddhist symbol.

And there's even more dragons in here, seeming to hold up some blue silk curtains.

Man, the dragons are really put to work around here.

And finally, there's one last symbol.

In fact, there are hundreds of them.

That are also way up high, but for once do not symbolize the east at all.

Although they kind of look like dragon scales, these tiny seashells, which get smaller and smaller as they go up to the center of the dome to create the illusion of height, are here simply as a symbol of beautiful Brighton beach.

Speaking of the beach, it is time to leave all this fancy living for a while, and head to the beautiful nature of Sussex.

And I know just the spot, it's a mysterious one, too.

(mysterious music) From man-made beauty to natural beauty, we now visit some sisters made of beautiful, bright white chalk.

Who stretch across England's beautiful southern coast, overlooking the English Channel.

This area is called the South Downs.

Downs comes from the old English word for hill.

So downs means hills, even though hills actually go up.

But I digress.

Part of this region includes those dramatic Seven Sisters cliffs, named not for the seven daughters of Zeus, but for another legend all together.

Supposedly seven sisters each had their own house built in the valley of each hill.

Nice backyards they had, right?

Along the South Downs way is Beachy Head, and its name comes from the old French phrase for beautiful headland, and it's easy to see why.

But the landscape isn't just pretty.

The history of the geology is fascinating, too.

You have the rolling hills and then it seems like somebody came and sliced them in half and you got this beautiful bright white chalk.

- Yup, well the chalk is what this place is all about.

The chalk actually formed under a shallow sea, about 90 million years ago.

So quite a long time ago.

- Quite a bit of time ago.

- And that sea actually stretched from around here right the way over to Poland in eastern Europe, so it's a vast sea.

- [Christine] And this beautiful stretch of land was once home to ancient tribes, from neolithic all the way through Roman, who all left some interesting clues behind.

Which brings us to the fanciful tales of this area of Sussex.

- We've got so many myths and legends, mostly referring right back to this archeology.

So when people used to see these mounds they thought they were fairy mounds, entrances to another world.

And there was always treasure buried inside them.

Of course, there isn't always treasure buried inside them.

But that didn't stop the Victorians looking.

So often when you see these burial mounds you'll find they have little dips in the top of them and that's where someone's gone treasure hunting because of these old myths and legends.

- Oh that's fantastic.

So for these little bumps and things that you say, primarily during the Victorian Era, where they thought oh let's explain this with something fantastical.

Did that have anything to do with the very sort of fantastical cliff's edge here, like just the whole area seemed magical?

- Yeah, I think it's always had a draw to people.

Because it does seem like the edge of the world, and if you don't have a huge world view that's exactly what it is.

So people were, and still are drawn to these places.

Not always for the right reasons as well.

- [Christine] Ah yes, the next part of our story.

From ancient cave men to modern day con men, these beautiful cliffs are also known for another mystery, smugglers.

- You might think nothing much goes on here, but actually this place was a hive of activity, and some of that wasn't always the most legal.

- Now does this bring us to the smuggling, smugglers.

- It does, yeah.

- What was being smuggled here?

I can't help but think pirates.

The smuggling shenanigans began as early as the 13th century, when the British government started taxing oof one its biggest exports, wool.

- They put a three pound tax per bag of wool, and three pounds was a lot of money 500 years ago.

- A lot of money, yeah.

- So people thought well I don't want to pay that.

So actually they thought well France is only over there, so I'll take my own.

And that was the start of the smuggling.

Originally smuggling out, and then people started to smuggle things back in.

And when excise duty came in and people were actually charged to bring imports into country people started smuggling both ways.

And those imports were things like tea.

It's estimated that four-fifths of the tea drunk in Britain in the 18th century was smuggled, hadn't paid tax.

So it's absolutely massive.

- [Christine] Smuggling was big business from the 17th through the 19th centuries, until it was finally brought to a halt.

But even after the smuggling stopped, the legends continued.

- So actually every pub and church in the south of England, within about five kilometers of the coast, has a myth about a tunnel leading from the pub to the church.

Nearly every one, I've gotta say, is rubbish.

- Oh, I was gonna say are there any tunnels left that we could?

- I've been down a lot of these so-called tunnels and they end up usually being medieval toilets.

- Not nearly as interesting.

- Well, I think it's far more interesting.

- Well no tunnels, but there are plenty of those darling churches and smuggler's pubs nearby, like this one, The Tiger Inn.

The perfect spot to get in from the cold and wind and warm up with a spot of tea or a pint, depending on your mood.

- It's not called the old lady's-- - And of course to to talk about smuggler's legends with the locals.

We're sitting in this gorgeous little pub right next to some of the most beautiful nature I've ever seen, and what I love learning are all the local myths and legends.

And you'd never think there was a seedy side to this beautiful little inn and the ones around here.

Tell us about the theories about the smugglers around here.

- Here in the public houses, in the inns we have around here, this is where the gangs of smugglers would have met.

Around the fire, having a conversation, working out when the next drop's gonna come in on the coast.

And also to hide it away from the excise men who were coming around to check.

There were trap doors in the floor, there were tunnels leading away to other houses in the village, so they could get the goods out of the view of the excise men when they were coming around.

- But the people involved in these heists weren't just the gangs of smugglers.

You might be surprised who else was helping out.

Everyone was in on it.

- Everyone was in on it.

- That's what I've heard.

- Even the local vicar of the church was involved.

He had a soft spot for brandy and he couldn't get it anywhere else.

- Of course he did.

- Yeah, this was during the Napoleonic Wars, so brandy being a French drink, we couldn't get it over here.

So he was sent on his horse over the cliff tops.

And if the coast guardsmen were coming he would delay long enough so that all the goods could be stored away.

- Now he did delay them?

Did he sort of say I wanna?

- He would go and hold conversation with the officer in charge-- - When was the last time you were in church and let's talk about it.

- Exactly, exactly.

- Oh that's great.

- I'm being a gentleman, then the conversation can continue long enough.

(mischievous music) - But before we leave this legendary smuggler's hub and pub, there's one more curious spot for us to investigate that has nothing to do with smugglers, but everything to do with being curious.

Because just across the village green from The Tiger Inn is a quite curious stone cottage with a little clue posted on its front.

There is a curious bit of literary history here in Sussex, too.

The world's favorite sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, retired here.

How do we know?

Well, there's a little blue plaque on this cottage that tells us so.

But there are also many references to Holmes wandering the hills of Sussex throughout the stories, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born near here, and he spent many years here.

So with all these clues we can deduce, it's elementary.

Next, from sisters and smugglers to fairy tale castles, complete with their own fairy tale towns.

Another great feature of Sussex are all of these wonderfully preserved medieval towns.

This is Arundel, with gorgeous Tudor architecture, it's own castle, and a quite curious history.

This is the market town of Arundel, the perfect example of the lovely English villages and small towns dotted all across Sussex.

Arundel is named for the River Arun, and developed after the Norman conquest of 1066.

That is right around the time when this castle was built, to guard the route through the Arun Valley.

And we explore the castle's curious history, with our purple-clad pal, Martin Alderton, Arundel's local tour guide, when he's not also being the local postman.

For hundreds of years the castle has been in the hands of royalty and nobility.

And for 850 years it has been the home of the Dukes of Norfolk, one of the oldest and most important titles in the English aristocracy.

The thing that I find most interesting is a lot of times when we visit these medieval towns we think of the castle as sort of stuck in time.

But somebody very important still lives in the castle.

Who lives in the castle?

- The Duke of Norfolk and his good Lady, Georgiana.

And the duke has always lived here, since it was given to him as gift.

It's not just the castle, it's the 20 miles radius of Arundel, so everywhere around Arundel are part of the castle estate going back to Henry II, so 12th century.

It was handed to him, it was a gift for favors to the crown.

He was given Arundel and all the area around Arundel.

So it's a nice gift.

- That's a nice gift.

And any time you have a castle, whether it be the home of the lord and lady, or for the king and queen, those fancy folk are going to need some stuff.

And in the pre-Amazon Prime days, the stuff needed to be made nearby the castle.

So that is why Arundel's darling High Street developed here.

And what we see today are some delightful little shops that specialize in all manner of goodies.

Some beautifully restored Tudor-style architecture, a High Street that climbs high up the hill, and if you look closely, some curious symbols of Arundel's medieval past.

There's some interesting features here behind us that somebody may say, "Oh, that's a nice checkerboard pattern," but it's there for a reason.

What did that used to tell the residents of the town?

- If we go back again to Victorian times, when they built shops in those days you didn't have signs above the door, people couldn't read them, education was poor, you didn't have window displays like you have today.

So they had to incorporate signs within the building that told what it sold.

And as a universal sign we have things like the checkerboard up on the building.

And the checkerboard was the sign of a gunsmith.

And if you go to Winchester and Windsor and Salisbury, the old towns, there's evidence of that sign being in those towns as well.

So we know it was a universal sign.

- And next to the gunsmith's shop you will see an anvil on top of this building.

Nope, this isn't Wiley E. Coyote playing yet another trick on the road runner, but in fact the symbol for the ironmonger's shop.

And finally, up that High Street hill, across from the entrance to Arundel Castle, is Arundel Cathedral.

It was built by one of the Dukes of Norfolk, whose origins date back to the 11th century, and is yet another beautiful piece of Arundel and Sussex history.

(gentle music) Our final stop is quite curious, indeed.

It is a medieval village of sorts, with a connection to Guinness beer and the roaring '20s.

There is a curious spot in Sussex where you can visit an authentic 15th century thatched cottage, which is right next to a 13th century charming chapel, which is on the grounds of a beautiful mish-mash of other medieval buildings, cottages, and churches that together create a wonderful living history museum and the best part is you can sleep in it.

This is Bailiffscourt in Clymping, West Sussex.

A hotel of the most curious kind.

It is called Bailiffscourt because a local bailiff used to work out of the manor house here.

It was assembled in the 1920s but its bones come from the Middle Ages.

I would imagine there's quite a few water challenges with the upkeep of a medieval-- - Yes, definitely, it's ongoing.

Just when you think you've got things sorted and then there's another problem, another leak somewhere.

- And much like the original design you're like, well I don't know exactly how to do this but we're going to figure it out.

If you are of at least average height you might have to duck to get into these medieval doorways.

This unique property has been a family-run business here for three generations.

Now run by Miranda and Pontus Carminger.

My first impression was oh my goodness, they've recreated sort of a medieval village.

Is that the idea?

What was the concept when this was being built in the 1920s and 1930s, what was the idea behind it?

- Well it was built by Walter Guinness, from the Guinness family, the brewing family, together with his wife and as far as I remember correctly, they used to come down to this part of the country for holidays.

- So Lord and Lady Moyne of the Guinness family built this unique, historic and simply charming faux medieval village for all their high society friends to stay in and enjoy.

They carefully collected original stone, woodwork, solid wood doors, iron and glass windows, even entire fireplaces and reassembled them here in Bailiffscourt in a whole new way.

So many details to look at.

I love how there was a stone sort of shape, almost gothic-shaped archway and then the wooden door within it, and then that little iron handle.

And so those are actually-- - Original.

- Amazing.

- Yes, and just brought from different parts of the country that they scoured for derelict buildings or buildings that were falling down and needed to be loved and brought back here, put back piece by piece.

- The bedrooms are named after different historical local fields.

There's a map here from the 1600s.

And the rooms are like little hideaways at the top of a castle.

And speaking of needing a little hideaway, there is a fun legend about another unique architectural feature here.

There happens to be a wonderful tunnel on the property here somewhere.

Why was the tunnel built?

- So the tunnel was built to be able to link these two buildings.

The building that we're sitting in here now and the thatch house.

So each of those buildings are the two big buildings in the grounds, and one building for Lady Moyne and one building for Lord Moyne, I think.

Had as their own ones, their own quarters, so to speak.

So he could do all of his entertaining in his house and she could do hers and then they could meet if they wanted to, and if they didn't want to-- - They didn't have to meet.

- They didn't have to cross, their paths didn't need to cross.

- I like that, I think that's the secret to a long and happy marriage, to have separate residences.

You can meet when you feel like it, and if you don't.

Back above ground is one final building that has been here all along at Bailiffscourt.

This darling chapel has been here since at least the 13th century, when it was used by the local villagers.

Thankfully Lord and Lady Moyne kept it, and kindly built their fairy tale medieval village around it.

And stepping inside this historic chapel today, especially at Christmastime, is nothing short of magical.

(bright music) So, from a royal palace dedicated to the beauty of the Far East, even though no one had actually been that far east, that is the home to a Welsh, not a Chinese dragon, with a seriously strong grip, that was built near the seaside.

A seaside so bright it is named Brighton, that leads to another coastal beauty so legendary that seven sisters nestled their homes into its chalky cliffs, and those soaring high cliffs and rolling downs have been home to all kinds of characters including some sneaky smugglers who are rumored to have sipped some of that smuggled tea, or downed a pint or two inside this smuggler's inn.

Which is next door to a legendary sleuth's retirement home, maybe.

We do know that this Sussex spot was home to many, many important dukes, earls, and other nobility.

And that this market town grew out of it to supply those fancy folk with their not so fancy stuff.

And some more modern fancy folk vacationed here, in a spot dedicated to medieval architecture, with room for everyone to spread out, and especially some room for the mister and misses to get some quiet time from each other.

And perhaps best of all, one charming little chapel, in the same spot for hundreds of years, even though its surroundings have changed from medieval to modern, back to medieval.

Sussex, the kingdom, the land of the south Saxons, has so much to be curious about.

Thank you for joining us on our educational journey and hopefully now you're even more curious about the who, what, where, why, when, and hows of curious Sussex.

As the English say, cheerio.

(bright music) Curious Traveler is made possible by the following.

- [Announcer] For more than 45 years, Vacations By Rail has been helping travelers explore the world with a collection of rail journeys and luxury river cruises.

Through awe-inspiring nature and cosmopolitan cities, from America's national parks to Europe and beyond.

Vacationsbyrail.com.

At GET we believe travel is more than just getting away.

It's about experiencing a destination and iconic sights and delving deep into local culture.

Learn more at getours.com.

SmarTours offers group tours to over 50 must-see destinations around the world.

With SmarTours we want you to enjoy the fun of travel while we do the planning for you.

The journey begins at smartours.com.

- [Christine] Still curious?

Go to curioustravelertv.com and follow us on Facebook @CuriousTravelerTV, on Twitter @CuriousTravTV, and on Instagram @CuriousTravelerTV.

(flourishing music)