The oldest map of Ramsgate

 The oldest map of Ramsgate was produced at the beginning of the 1700s. We were very lucky here in Thanet to have a clergyman who was also a historian, most histories of Kent date from around 1800 so we had a jump of about 100 years on most of the rest of the county. 

If you want to look at his book,The History and Antiquities as well Ecclesiastical as Civil of the Isle of Tenet, in Kent,  we do a cheap reprint here at Michael's bookshop in Ramsgate, so you can come and have a thorough browse of it. 

John Lewis, vicar of Margate and Minster was basically a decent and scholarly person.  This was not necessarily the case with vicars during the 16 and 1700s.

If you have a decent grasp of latin you could have a browse of Archbishop Wake's private notebook (Notitia Dioces Cantuar,) in Canterbury Cathedral Library.

He said: Patten of Whitstable kept a mistress and did not pay his debts; Bourn of Ash was "allied to the sons of Eli" ; Roberts of Queenborough, ale-house sot and debtor, "so impudent as nothing is like him"; Bate of Chilham, "proudest and stiffest man" in the diocese, allowing corpses to lie unburied for want of fees; Burroughs of Kingston, "most horribly covetous" ; Ansell of Stowting and Cade of Sellindge, Jacobites and taven-brawlers; Edward Dering of Charing who fought his own sister at the Swan Inn and threw her "head-cloaths" into the fire; Hobbs of Dover, who amassed pluralities; Isles of New Romney a notorious sot and Jacobite; Nicholls of Fordwich who preached that George was a Foreigner, a Lutheran, and a Beggar-"a wicked, swearing. Lying, Drunken man".

Notes 

For those of you unfamiliar with the sons of Eli may I refer you to 1 Samuel 12- 17. 

Pluralities, extra parishes acquired for their incomes alone. 

Ecclesia desolata. Church ruined and deserted but still having an income.

The picture which I think is supposed to look like Ramsgate in the 1500s was painted by  Kennett Beacham Martin in 1821, so based on his imagination.

Ramsgate Carnival Queen and Court 2026

Next links to Thousands of pictures of Ramsgate Carnival over the years

Click here for 500 photos of Ramsgate carnival 2023 mostly taken from outside Michael's Bookshop in King Street

Here are the links to the 2022 carnival pictures

https://www.michaelsbookshop.com/ramsgatecarnival2022/

https://www.michaelsbookshop.com/ramsgatecarnival2022/id3.htm

https://www.michaelsbookshop.com/ramsgatecarnival2022/id4.htm

https://www.michaelsbookshop.com/ramsgatecarnival2022/id5.htm

https://www.michaelsbookshop.com/ramsgatecarnival2022/id6.htm

https://www.michaelsbookshop.com/ramsgatecarnival2022/id7.htm

https://www.michaelsbookshop.com/ramsgatecarnival2022/id8.htm

if I get time I will delete the worst of the photos and publish them in more conventional way.

Here is the link to the more conventional upload however they will be compressed files

Here are the links to some previous years pictures of Ramsgate carnival

2017

http://michaelsbookshop.com/717/id10.htm

http://michaelsbookshop.com/717/id11.htm

http://michaelsbookshop.com/717/id12.htm

http://michaelsbookshop.com/717/id13.htm

http://michaelsbookshop.com/717/id14.htm

2016 http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/2016ramsgatecarnival/

2013, see http://michaelsbookshop.com/carnival2013/

And this in 2011 http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/ramsgatecarnival2011

This 2010 http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/rc2010 /

2008 http://michaelsbookshop.com/ramsgatecarnival2008/

 2007 https://michaelsbookshop.com/carnival/

Ramsgate Carnival 1968

Some pictures of Ramsgate Carnival 2026 

So now I come to the problem of photographing the carnival and not photographing people who don't want to be photographed and people's children without getting their parents permission. The internet has changed radically since I first started photographing Ramsgate Carnival and publishing photos on the internet about 20 years ago. 

There is no easy solution to this problem and as far as I can see it will only get more difficult. So if I get time I will add some more of the pictures that I took of the 2026 carnival yesterday, having checked them and edited them.

                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Granville Marina Cafeteria

 Granville Marina Cafeteria and I think the organist is probably Ken Stroud. As for the date, probably 1950s but could be the early 1960s. 

I put in a few more pictures to give a bit of context

Granville Marina was built by JT Wimperis in 1877 as a development of a beach resort for Edward Pugin's Granville Hotel. As originally devised, the development consisted of shops, houses, shell grottos, tea rooms, a 'wintergardens' and theatre. The most unusual aspect was the building of a pier. As the other piers in the country were built to give enough depth of water for the steamers, that brought the holiday makers, enough depth of water to land. But of course in Ramsgate the steamers could already land on the harbour arms so building a pier didn't make any sense at all. If you want to go into this aspect of Ramsgate's history in more detail I recommend you come here to Michael's Bookshop in Ramsgate and browse the book called Fateful Finger of Iron.

Pictures The Paragon Baths and its collapse in 1958

  The baths were built into the cliffs in 1862 and called the Royal Paragon Baths. It closed after World War One. They were partly demolished at some time after that, with the intention of re-building, but such plans never materialised. As you see from the photos the cliff behind them collapsed in 1958, finally demolishing what was left of them. Older (in their 80s and 90s) local history customers of mine here at Michael’s Bookshop in Ramsgate, tell me that when they were the youth of today, it was a good place to hang out. So a thank you to them as they provided the pictures, by bringing them into the bookshop and letting me copy them. If there is a moral here it maybe. If you are going to build something under the cliff, make sure it is strong enough to withstand a cliff collapse. The picture with the glass in the windows is about 1900, the one without the glass is after WW1

When was Thanet a proper island?

This is a question I often get asked and I think the answer is roughly between 1400 and 1500. I will do my best to back this up with some maps. 

The first map, the one that says “mappa thaneti insule” along the top in latin dates from around 1400, different historians date it between 1380 and definitely before 1414 as it appears in the book by Thomas Elmham called “Historia Monasterii S Augustini Cantuariensis” Definitely and island then.

The second map, the one with the yellow and green watercolour shading on it, is a detail from a navigational chart for 1590. As you can see the Wantsum channel that used to separate the Isle of Thanet from the rest of the UK has silted up by then. 

The third map, the one with the blue sea and green land, is one I drew to show the approximate situation back in 1400 and before. 

In terms of books that explain about Thanet as an island, the main one and the one from which pretty much all of the information is derived is from 1736 “The History and Antiquities as well Ecclesiastical as Civil of the Isle of Tenet, in Kent The Second Edition, With Additions.”   An original copy of this will set you back anything between £500 or £1,000 depending on the state it's in and whether it's got all of its pictures. A word of warning here: don't buy or read the first edition which I think was 1723 as it's only got about half the information in it. Here at Michaels bookshop in Ramsgate we do a cheap modern reprint of the 2nd edition, so you can always come into the bookshop and give it a browse.

The Royal Victoria Pavilion Ramsgate

With Papa’s Fish & Chips, due to open soon in the part that was empty next to Wetherspoons. I thought I should do a post about it.

Anyone who has lived in Ramsgate is likely to have memories of it.  I first remember it as The Show Bar in the 1960s (The Golden Goose comes to mind, is that right?).

Sometime in the 1970s I worked for a bit in Stardust amusement arcade that was in the bit where the fish and chips are going. I certainly remember the nightclub that was there for a while, see the picture with the banana. And of course Tiberius Casino especially for their superb breakfasts after working in a nightclub. And more recently going to Wetherspoons to have a meal and do a watercolour sketch of the inside. When it first opened in 1903 its main function was a theatre. See the picture showing the inside with the stage in the distance.

There is a very good full page spread advertisement in the 1904 tourist guide to Ramsgate, we publish a cheap modern reprint of this guide here at Michaels Bookshop so you can always come in and give that a browse.

The main snag with the building is that it's a bit too low relative to spring tides and tidal surges, picture 2009. As you can see from the picture, even during a normal spring tide the water gets very close. In the 1953 tidal search storm it was washed through completely and was left in a position where it looked like it was in the middle of the beach.

WELCOME TO RAMSGATE

 

Many thanks to TDC for putting the sign back to. “WELCOME TO RAMSGATE" 

Sorry about the lack of blog posts recently here at Michael's Bookshop in Ramsgate we have been much busier than I would expect in June.

Sign of the Times

 

I complained about this sign to TDC by email

On Friday, 10 April 2026 at 15:57:50 BST, michaelchild@aol.com <michaelchild@aol.com> wrote:


Hello

I wish to complain about the sign on the London Road coming into Ramsgate. See photo (taken yesterday) attached.

I used to alternate between saying "Welcome to Ramsgate" and various other messages, it then got stuck on saying "Please park in designated places" I think this is an entirely inappropriate and unnecessary message to display to people coming into a tourist town.

I would also like to ask the following as an FOI request.

1 Which council is responsible for this sign?

2 Which council department is responsible for this sign?

3 What have been the costs of supplying and maintaining this machine?

Best regards Michael
http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/ Pictures of books going out on the shelves in my bookshop
http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/ My general pictures and writing
Due to the nature of Clown Computing this email has been sent to you from some sort of fruit, it may make you more comfortable to know the following:- If it makes sense, it was sent by my PineApple Device, which has an ordinary keyboard. If it contains random wrong words, it was sent by my RaspBerry Device, which has predictive text and a small screen that I can’t always see properly. If it makes no sense whatsoever, it was sent by my new BaNana Device, with which I develop the persona of a chimpanzee and hit keys randomly hoping it will produce the works of Shakespeare, or at least something coherent