More retail doom and gloom as Morrisons announce closure of their Ramsgate supermarket and a bit of a ramble from the bookshop.

This picture of Ramsgate was drawn by Henry Moses in 1817, I publish a book of his pictures of Ramsgate, here is the link http://michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/1817_picturesque_views_of_ramsgate.htm  

I guess the main problem for Morrisons was that they opened opposite Iceland and are more expensive as I said in the blog post when the opened http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/julian-lovegrove-exhibition-at-york.html

I guess if you opened a smaller and more expensive bookshop in King Street opposite mine then you wouldn’t last very long. Allthatsaid I am sorry they are closing, with McDonalds closing almost next door this is going to be a bit of a retail black hole.  

Bookshop wise I got permission sometime last year from Rosemary Quested’s family to do a reprint of The Isle of Thanet Farming Community: An Agrarian History of Easternmost Kent…

At the moment I am in proof reading stage of the process of converting it from a 300 page paperback into a 100 page stapled booklet, altogether there is about a fortnights work in this process.

The issue is that it is a key Thanet history book and needs to be available for less than £10 in a way that is sustainable. Anyway it should be out in a few weeks time, but at the moment the work involved means I have little time for anything else. Here is an example of the text in the book:

“It is worthwhile looking at the politico-religious events of the 16th–17th centuries for the light they throw on the development of Thanet’s character. During Henry VIII’s Reformation, the return to Catholicism under Mary and the final shaping of the Church of England by Elizabeth I, most of the Thanet population apparently accepted the changes imposed upon them from above, and at first only a few took sides. ... more recently it has been found that the Lollard tradition survived in parts of East Kent into the middle of the 16th century. There was extreme Protestant, Lollard-type activity at Faversham in 1535, at Canterbury in the 1540s, at Faversham again in 1550-51, and some of the Canterbury martyrs burnt under Queen Mary in 1555 were accused of Lollard-type arguments. ... In 1556 John Alchorne of Birchington denied all the ceremonies of the Church and kept illicit books, though he gave in and agreed to conform.

The vicar of St Peter’s was accused of supporting the Pope in 1537. ... Serles (famous for having maintained that Mary gave birth to Jesus when she was fourteen because the moon comes to the full in fourteen days), was vicar of Monkton in 1552-1561. ...

Later in the century various sectarian tendencies definitely became established here. William Claybrooke, a former lawyer living at Nash Court, owned or had read “all contentious or schismatic books at any time printed” about 1588. The Vicar of St Nicholas, a non-conforming Puritan, preached against other sectaries in 1590. By the end of the 16th century separatist or semi-separatist groups were especially active in Thanet ... In 1617-18, under a moderate Puritan archbishop, St John’s was one of various parishes in East Kent given a new vicar with reforming duties — a “reformed pulpit” as it was called. The Puritan movement is not mentioned again until the 1640s.”

As you see it is pretty concentrated and assumes a fairly high academic ability in the reader. An interesting point about this bit of text is that the Dutch gables in Margate and Ramsgate are the result of the first big influx of immigrants, these were protestant religious refugees, (unless you count the romans, Normans, Hengist and Horsa et al) also responsible for lots of land drainage, including Sandwich.         

One wonders what the then equivalent of UKIP had to say about all those foreigners building houses and draining the land.