I stepped off the train and tried to remember why I'd come. I had been warned. "It's not very nice", they said. "Not much to do", they told me. I was in Margate.
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Margate Perfect Figure, Margate Lido, September 1947
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| Margate Pier, c1900 |
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Margate Lido
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Dreamland Amusements today
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| Skinheads in Margate, 1970s |
Once the place to be, since the onslaught of holidays abroad, this town has been forgotten. After about half an hour, I began to feel it. The history. This was the birthplace of the British Seaside Holiday. From Victorian times to the 1960s, it was cool. Cheap, colourful and cheerful.
Its weird to see a town alive with people and dead in so many areas. Beautiful Georgian houses surround it. It has the oldest rollercoaster in the UK. Of course, it now lies in ruins. We stay in the beautiful
Reading Rooms.
For me, the most touching part was Martgate Lido. Once one of the few seaside pools, it is of course, in ruins now. But it's Art Deco charm remains, for me at least. Once it hosted Beauty Pagents. I just loved it.
Margate is on the up. We see a lot of this. I hope it's true. Tracey Emin is from Margate. This explains a lot. I left after two days being completly touched by this town. There is so much to it, with its long history. Such a sad place. I hope in 10 years, this post will be outdated and it will indeed return to its former glory.
Ez x
very interesting thanks for sharing blau great snaps too! x
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing about our town. We are like a phoenix; we are rising from the ashes. Quite literally. The roller coaster unfortunately got in the way of the local arsonists playground. But, we have a grant from the Heritage Society to restore it and to turn Dreamland into a Heritage Theme Park. If we can just stop the madness of The Tesco trying to build a MASSIVE 24 hour Tesco on the sea front. Right now we are winning. There is a real feeling of hope. Finally, Margate is going places again.
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