Photographs of Margate (3)

Might as well add a third tranche of photographs while I'm at it! This first photograph shows Margate's oldest building -- the Tudor House, in King Street. Despite its name, this is late medieval rather than Tudor; originally a farmstead on the edge of town, and rather over-enthusiastically restored in the 1950s (the sort of restoration where the people concerned put in what they thought should be there rather than what the documentary evidence said was there, which would be heavily frowned on today).

This second photograph shows a small cottage in Market Street -- not perhaps the most elegant of dwellings, but one that is quietly proud of its modest contribution to the heritage streetscape (etc. etc. -- add posy wanky architectural criticism to taste).

This and the next photograph show the Margate Museum and the Town Hall (connected by an enclosed passage at first floor level) in the Market Place. The Town Hall was formerly the police station and magistrate's court, in the latter of which (I quote from the Margate Heritage Trail leaflet) "Dr George Simpson JP, Chairman of the Margate Bench, made his famous Sawdust Caesars speech during the Mods and Rockers Trial in 1964". There is a brief Wikipedia entry which covers this here.

Finally, India House in Hawley Street, built in 1767 for Captain John Gould, "late of Calcutta", who is said to be the first known example of a man "retiring to the seaside". There seems to be no record of how much longer he lived after so retiring, which is a bit of a shame.

Next time: the first photographs of Whitstable!