Hildenborough

The impressive facade of the Hotel Metropole, with the Ship Hotel next door, faced the end of the Jetty to greet the thousands of holidaymakers who travelled down on the paddle steamers. In the foreground is a ‘guess your weight’ machine, where you only paid if the proprietor guessed your weight correctly. He could do this by cleverly adjusting the weights to his advantage. Six houses to the left was the lodging house of Mrs Sophia Booth, where J M W Turner stayed between 1827 and 1851. From here he painted watercolours of golden sunsets over the sea to the west and the misty dawns to the east. Between 1939 and 1945 the Hotel Metropole and surrounding properties were demolished as part of the town’s Fort Road Improvement Scheme. The area as it was before demolition can be seen in the aerial photograph on pages 8-9. Three acres of rundown cafes, souvenir shops and a wooden arcade were cleared, and a new dual-carriageway swept down the hill offering a clear panoramic view of the sands and bay.
An extract from from"Margate Town and City Memories".

The list of `Fashionables` taking rooms in the Cliftonville Hotel would be published weekly in the local newspaper, again emphasising the separation of the social classes.
An extract from from"Margate Town and City Memories".

Margate received its Charter of Incorporation in 1857. Communal action and a progressive Town Council aided development with the building of promenades, bandstands, concert halls and the provision of a good water supply and drainage. The resort spread eastwards into Cliftonville, and later westwards to take over Westgate and Birchington. The boarding houses of Margate became the private guest houses and hotels of Cliftonville; dinner was served in the evening and not midday, and amateur landladies with old-fashioned rules were replaced by professionally trained staff. Frith’s Margate has now almost disappeared. There has been a partial rejection of the traditional bucket and spade family fortnight by the sea. With competition from continental holidays in sunnier climates and the mobility brought by package tours and private car ownership, visitors are demanding a higher standard of amenity and more sophisticated entertainment. The town’s population is also increasing with a larger number of permanent residents enjoying their memories and pensions in their retirement years by the sea.
An extract from from"Margate Town and City Memories".

RECORDS of a harbour in Margate go back to the 14th century, when it appears to have been a small wooden structure sheltering the local fishing vessels. Prior to the building of Jarvis’ wooden jetty in 1824 the stone pier around the harbour was the main landing point for most visitors, but only at high water. The building of the 1824 jetty then allowed disembarking at all states of the tide. Through the centuries Margate Harbour has always suffered from the destructive forces of the strong northerly storms. The most disastrous was the winter storm of 1808, which destroyed most of the stone pier and the neighbouring sea front. This resulted in the construction of a new stone pier and wharves built by John Rennie between 1812 and 1815. The lighthouse shown in 54762 was added in 1829. However, it suffered storm damage and fell into the sea during the winter storms and floods of 1953. It has now been replaced by a smaller and simpler structure. The disadvantage of the stone pier was that vessels had to anchor offshore at low tide. This was overcome by the building of an unsatisfactory wooden jetty in 1824, which in turn was replaced between 1853 and 1857 by Birch’s iron jetty. The structure jutted 1,240 feet out to sea and a small rail link brought passengers and their luggage down to landside porters.
An extract from from"Margate Town and City Memories".

At the landside end was the Camera Obscura. This had been an attraction in Margate since 1797 when it was on the Fort. It consisted of an ingenious system of prisms, mirrors and lenses which projected a panoramic view of the sea front and sands on to a circular white table. A ‘guess your weight’ chair is at the door.
An extract from from"Margate Town and City Memories".