Designed by architect Stanley Davenport Adshead who also designed Ramsgate Library the floor is well below the flood line, so the building is not just at risk from how the council dispose of it.
Anyway the current occupant the casino is due to move off to improve the traffic congestion at Westwood Cross and I am afraid they haven’t been to kind to our pavilion.
Their greatest act of external vandalism being the demolition of Adshead’s ornate porch and bricking up all the windows, internally they have let a large part of the building that they didn’t want to use become derelict.
I wonder if they will have to do anything to return it to its former glory when they leave, I suppose being casino operators they would be able to afford to.
You may consider that Brighton makes rather more of its pavilion so there you have it a building the size of the Turner Contemporary in a prime site, I wonder what will happen.
As always Michael, you infuriate us by showing the elegance of past times, highlighting what we're missing!
ReplyDeleteThe Pavilion is surely such an easy one to save - it's obviously destined to be a building for public use, and once taken over by a charitable trust on a sympathetic lease from a friendly local council, could be turned in to a regionally significant community centre. A large hall for performances, exhibitions, concerts, festivals, the occasional trade / craft / antique fair; catering spaces all around, along with small workshop, studio and shop spaces; a terrace serving rereshments with the sea and harbour views that it was built for - it just needs a bit of vision, a shedload of money (ah, ok, there might be a catch) and some assistance from the council (ok, I've come back to my senses now...).
Oh well, maybe a nice pub chain could acquire it and do the same as has happened to the Customs House - bugger all, but it's an asset in the accounts and that's what counts. Sigh.