Town in Kent, England
Margate
Londoners first came by sailing hoy to dip in the sea. Now Margate has Turner's skies, Eliot's Waste Land and a rollercoaster that rose again.
Key information
- County
- Kent
- Nation
- England
- Known for
- Sandy beaches, Dreamland, the Shell Grotto, Turner Contemporary and a seaside revival
- Famous people
- Tracey Emin (grew up here), J. M. W. Turner and T. S. Eliot (famous visitors)
- Football clubs
- Margate FC, who play at Hartsdown Park
About Margate
The underground room nobody can explain
Margate's most baffling attraction is beneath a suburban street. The Shell Grotto is a winding passage and chamber decorated with about 4.6 million shells, arranged in swirls, stars and patterns that cover nearly every surface. It was found in 1835 when a hole was dug in the ground, and nobody has ever settled who made it or why. Ancient temple, Regency folly and smugglers' hideout have all been suggested. The mystery is part of the appeal. It is the sort of place that makes you wonder what else is buried under a seaside town.
How Londoners learned to love the sea
Margate was a seaside resort before the word was fashionable. In the 18th century doctors prescribed sea water for all sorts of ailments, and Margate, a short sail from the Thames, took full advantage. Sailing hoys carried passengers down from London, and from 1815 steamboats made the journey quicker. Benjamin Beale, a Quaker glove-maker, is credited with improving the bathing machine with a canvas hood so bathers could enter the water in privacy. In 1791 the Royal Sea Bathing Hospital was founded here, treating patients with sea air and salt water. Margate was selling the seaside as a cure, long before it sold it as a holiday.
The sky that Turner couldn't stop painting
J. M. W. Turner went to school in Margate as a boy and returned often through his life. He declared the skies over Thanet to be the loveliest in all Europe, and it is easy to see why when the sun drops behind the bay. The Turner Contemporary gallery, designed by David Chipperfield, opened on the seafront in 2011. It stands on the site of the lodging house where Turner stayed on his visits, and its big windows frame the same horizon. The gallery helped kick-start the town's modern reinvention. Artists, designers and Londoners in search of cheaper rent followed, which is how the nickname Shoreditch-on-Sea came about.
A poet, a shelter and the sands
In late 1921 T. S. Eliot came to Margate to recover from a breakdown. He sat in the Nayland Rock Shelter on the seafront and worked on The Waste Land, whose third part includes the line "On Margate Sands. I can connect nothing with nothing." The shelter is still on the front, and the sands have lost none of their appeal. The wide, sheltered main beach is the reason people started coming in the first place. Margate's famous daughter of the modern age is Tracey Emin, who grew up in the town and has spoken often about its influence on her work. She has helped put Margate on the art world's map.
Fire, rides and the rise of Dreamland
Dreamland's site began as the Hall by the Sea in 1863, and was later run by the showman Lord George Sanger. It became Dreamland in 1920, the year its Scenic Railway rollercoaster opened. The ride became one of the best-loved on the south coast. The park had already closed when fire struck in April 2008. The blaze destroyed roughly a quarter of the Scenic Railway's structure, not the whole ride, and for years the site looked like another seaside casualty. The railway was restored and Dreamland reopened in 2015 with a retro, vintage-ride theme and live music. It is now part of the town's comeback, rather than a symbol of its decline. Margate's seafront has seen other drama, too. Mods and rockers famously clashed here and in other south-coast resorts on the Whitsun bank holiday in 1964, and a storm in 1978 destroyed the old Jetty.
What to eat and where to watch the tide
Margate has always been a fish-and-chips, ice cream and seaside rock kind of place, and those still do a good trade. These days the Harbour Arm adds seafood stalls, small restaurants and bars, with oysters and fresh fish on the menu and a view of the open water. Football fans have Margate FC, nicknamed the Gate, who play at Hartsdown Park. The Old Town, with its narrow lanes of vintage shops, galleries and cafes, is the best part to wander. Then head to the seafront for the sunset, which is what Turner came for.