1 post tagged “dreamland”
Last weekend, in desperate need of an escape from London for a couple of days, Z and I packed a picnic, boarded a train, and set off on an adventure to the sunny shore of the Southeastern coast.
Before we go much further, perhaps I'd better set the scene. My main reason for selecting Margate as our destination was the Walpole Bay Hotel, which I'd been desperate to visit since I read about it online. But I'd never been to Margate before, and wasn't sure what to expect. The only Margate trivia I knew was that its station overlooks the only remaining rollercoaster of abandoned amusement park Dreamland, and that it's where Tracey Emin had her much-maligned childhood.
On our arrival I was somewhat concerned. There's no denying that the town has been hit hard by the decline in tourism since the advent of cheap air travel. The promenade is lined with dilapidated and closed-down shops and restaurants, the seagulls were almost as big as dogs, and the concrete steps down to the seafront covered in mad mis-spelt chalk-scrawled graffiti.
But anyone who knows me well will already be aware that I’ve had a love affair with Blackpool ever since my grandparents drove us there when I was little to see the illuminations. I love the romance of places like that; even though it’s been decades since their heyday, there’s definitely a decayed glamour about seaside towns that I can’t help but be enthralled by.
And despite the boarded-up buildings and sad-looking boarding houses, the remaining tourist attractions did not disappoint. Since our visit I've developed a bit of an obsession with the hauntingly sinister Shell Grotto, and Z is still sulking after I trounced him at Strokes Adventure Golf. At the Turner Contemporary Gallery we had a good old natter to a very sweet lady named Sadie, who told us all about the artistic community that seem to be thriving behind the scene in Margate, and the plans in place for its regeneration.
Apart from sightseeing, crazy golfing and wandering for miles along the beaches, we spent most of our time eating lots of cheesecake, drinking lots of wine and guzzling lots of tea from old-fashioned china teacups with saucers whilst sitting in the sunshine on our hotel balcony.
The Walpole Bay Hotel could not have been a more perfect mirror of my idiotic and whimsical obsession with all things old-fashioned if it’d had been kitted out specifically with me in mind. (Despite my searches, I’ve never yet found another hotel with an actual museum in it.) For the entire weekend it felt like we were much further away from London than the two-hour train ride, which was exactly what we needed. The fact that the vintage furniture and décor at the hotel (including a 1920s trellis lift in the reception, Edwardian-style restaurant, gentleman’s lounge and ballroom) made us feel that we’d been zapped back in time by several decades too was an unexpected but wonderful bonus. The only slight hitch was that I didn’t want to leave….
