I took a trip to Margate this weekend. I had never been and was intrigued by all the hype surrounding the seaside town. The trip didn’t start well- there was some sort of quad bike race that screeched in our ears and sealed off the beach- but the day was saved by some antique shopping and the shell grotto.
Dreamland is for now sealed off and covered in graffiti, but with some funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, will soon reopen again and reinstate itself as an iconic amusement park. The Dreamland park has a Grade II* listed roller coaster, Grade II listed menagerie cages and a Grade II* listed cinema building on the waterfront.
Phase one of the development will see the Scenic Railway restored, alongside historic rides and repairs to the cinema, the reopening of the main park entrance, and the introduction of a learning centre, exhibition area and community space. According to their website, they anticipated work to begin in 2012, but little seemed to be happening behind the wooden fences. You can see some photos of what it used to look like here.
There was also some great antique and junk shops. One worth going to is Scott’s Furniture Mart in the town’s former ice works. Family-run, the store has three floors and two yards of furniture, architectural salvage, tables, chairs, signs, doors and every kind of bygone that you could imagine.
We also made a trip to the famous shell grotto. The story goes that in 1835 Mr James Newlove lowered his young son Joshua into a hole in the ground that had appeared during the digging of a duck pond. Joshua emerged describing tunnels covered with shells. Nobody could explain who built the cavern, whether it was an ancient pagan temple or a meeting place for some secret cult. They still can’t. The grotto’s discovery has remained a mystery and attracted visitors ever since in opened its doors to the public in 1838. Humble cockles, whelks, mussels and oysters are arranged in patterns and symbols, and have become dulled with age and the gas lamps the Victorians used to use.
We also had a look at the Turner Contemporary by David Chipperfield, and a Carl Andre exhibition. I liked the way the cladding of the building mimicked the sky and how the building was a discreet presence along the waterfront of Margate, but the exhibition space itself was cramped and could have made more of a connection with the sea.
