John Piper shared his delight in the quirkiness and charm of English seaside buildings with his great friend, the poet and architectural writer John Betjeman. Both were fascinated by old guide-books and by the albums of topographical views that had enjoyed such a vogue in the years around 1780-1820. Experimenting with the old-fashioned aquatint etching process, Piper found a medium which exactly suited his desire to combine abstracted pattern with carefully rendered architectural detail. Remarkably receptive to both the elegance and rackety, decaying charm of Brighton, Piper made a set of twelve plates. They were published in a traditional oblong album format, with descriptions of the subjects by the artist and an introduction by Lord Alfred Douglas. A small number of sets were bound up with the prints individually hand-coloured by Piper himself, his wife Myfanwy and John Betjeman.