Situated on Brighton's seafront, the Mechanical Memories Museum is a working penny arcade museum with an interesting and wide variety of penny slot machines dating from the early 1900s to the 1960s. Many thousands of visitors each year can enjoy the thrill of seaside fun from yesteryear with the various vintage coin-operated amusement machines. 'The Museum has an incredible permanent collection of items from Brighton's history, an excellent 20th Century gallery, a great ceramics collection, interesting paintings and a good fashion gallery.' 'Brighton Museum is fortunate in having year after year excellent exhibitions, always worth a visit, but since January it has a new permanent. The UK's oldest established Vintage Penny Arcade. Sadly, after 40 years in Brighton. Brighton's famous. Our machines are now for sale.

• Penny Slot Machine Museum Brighton Beach
• Penny Slot Machine Museum Brighton England
• Penny Slot Machine Museum Brighton Co
• Penny Slot Machine Museum Brighton Uk

Museum of Penny Slot Machines is located in a welcoming area of Brighton known for its bar scene and major shopping area. If you’re looking for a convenient place to stay, take a look at the 573 hotels and other accommodation options you’ll find within a mile.

“I came down to Brighton for the weekend to see my cousin who lived in Kemptown, and took my camera, and went down the seafront. Usually the best way for me to take photos is just to go and explore with a fresh mind like a blank canvas.

Penny Slot Machine Museum Brighton Beach

Old fashioned Mystic Meg
I found the penny arcade museum, and saw this machine. It looked like an old-fashioned Mystic Meg; a big kitsch, a bit over the top and funfair-ish. I was so fascinated by it I took a whole role of film – people thought I was barmy! When you put your money in you get a card. You put in your date of birth and you get a funny message.

The Penny Arcade Museum
The Penny Arcade Museum is on the seafront as you go past the arches, along from the artists’ galleries. I took the photo over three years ago, and I’m not sure if the machine is still there. I included the photo in my Final Photography Project, for my BTEC National Diploma in Design (Photography) course.”

Comments about this page

• I see a Haunted Graveyard machine on your gallery. Have you got any other working models there?

• Went there last week and it was CLOSED for the Winter.

Letterhead for the National Museum of Slot Machines (John Hayward) [image info]

1983: Brighton Council permit for The Slot Machine Museum, Brighton Pier [image info]

The National Museum of Penny Slot Machines was founded in 1979 by John Hayward and Clive Baker by pooling their collections, and was initially located on the old Birnbeck Pier at Weston-Super-Mare.

Low visitor numbers prompted the museum to moves to the move popular Brighton Pier, where it was housed in the Pierhead's Theatre.

Penny Slot Machine Museum Brighton England

The Penny Slot Museum is the brainchild of John Hayward, a former art student who now devotes himself to running it full-time, and Clive Baker, who currently works in the planning department of a local council.

— , -, Coin Slot Machine magazine 8:6, February 1983

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Brighton

The museum remained on the Pier until the Theatre building was demolished in the 1980s as part of the Pier's redevelopment programme, and in 1986 the museum moved to the seafront, becoming The Old Penny Palace.

Two national museums?

Penny Slot Machine Museum Brighton Co

Confusingly, at around the same time, the NMPSM also seems to have moved to Southport, so we're guessing that the John and Clive may have separated their collections, with John staying in Brighton (and Clive moving to Southport?). The Southport 'fork' seems to have retained the name 'The National Museum of Penny Slot Machines', while the Brighton 'fork' appears to have experimented with a range of different names.

Southport

The Southport Pier installation eventually came to number 100 machines, but was then split up when a different company took over the concession for the space, with different batches of machines going to South Sea in Portsmouth, Milestones Museum in Basingstoke, and thirty-five machines going to North Pier in Blackpool.

The new Southport concessionaires then installed their own (rather smaller) collection of penny slot machines on the site.

Penny Slot Machine Museum Brighton Uk

Links

weston-super-mare and brighton:

southport:

• Southport Pier's National Museum of Penny Slot Machines (lancashirelife.co.uk) – published: 26 May 2011 updated: 28 February 2013
• 'Country's biggest penny slot machine collection leaves Southport home', by Natasha Young (champnews.com) – 22 May 2012
• Warning - Penny Arcade Museum of Slot Machines now tiny (tripadvisor.co.uk) – ~2012