The hidden door in the Music Room. Photo: Graham Spicer/24 Hour Museum

Brighton Pavilion has launched a new range of specialist guided tours where visitors can delve into the world of Regency England and even see behind the scenes to tunnels, hidden staircases and secret passages.

Groups can book the new tours are peer down the tunnel that leads under the gardens to King George IV’s former stables or sneak through a hidden door in the Music Room, to find the Band Room, where musicians prepared before performing.

In fair weather there is even the chance to climb onto the rooftop to get a close up look at the forest of domes and minarets that dot it, and get a bird’s eye view into the Music Room and across the gardens.

Down in the bowels of the Pavilion. Photo: Graham Spicer/24 Hour Museum

Other highlights include a visit to the Saloon ‘Bottle’ – the interior of the main dome above the Pavilion’s Saloon, which originally was used as servants’ quarters and is now covered in graffiti stretching back to the 1850s when the building was sold to the Brighton Corporation by Queen Victoria.

Specialist conservation staff and curators lead the tours, and as well as the behind the scenes tour there are tours looking into women in Regency England, the life of the servants at the palace, and one where you can find out about dandies and the decadence that occurred in the Pavilion in King George’s day.

The view from the Saloon 'Bottle'. Photo: Graham Spicer/24 Hour Museum

The Pavilion was built for George as a seaside bolthole from the intrigues of court in London. Its Oriental exterior was built by John Nash, architect of Buckingham Palace and Marble Arch in London, between 1815 and 1822.

The tours only run for groups and must be booked in advance although times and dates can be arranged to suit the party.