I think these two old photos have done the internet rounds
of being copied and appearing on most local history websites about this area
since I first put them online about ten years ago.
The main snag with this is the image sizes get smaller and
smaller meaning you dear reader can see less and less detail.
I thought it was about time to republish them at a
reasonable size, for those of you familiar with this blog, you will know that a
bit of compulsive clicking will get them up to a reasonable size so you can
home in on the detail.
Ramsgate photo wise there isn’t a lot that predates these
ones, so they really are a bit of a look into the other country that is our
past.
The only reason I know they were taken before 1860 is that
Ramsgate Sands Railway station was built in 1860 on the site where the coast guard
station stood before 1860.
The station carried on being a station until the early
1920s when it closed and the bit where
the railway lines were was turned into a funfair with the station building
being turned into an indoor amusement arcade called Merrie England, Olympia, Pleasureland and
eventually Pleasurama.
This eventually burnt down around twenty years ago and
became a deserted building site, which it still is.
I think it possible that this is part of the plan to
regenerate Margate, i.e. degenerating Ramsgate, the main rival holiday leisure
in Thanet will give Margate an extra boost. Another alternative is that there
is no plan and this like Westcliff Hall is just another dreadful accident
delivered by our accident-prone district council.
It may look like I am having a bit a dig at the council but
I have been sending them emails asking for an update on the situation with the
site for several months now and I haven’t had any replies.
Anyway back to the history, assuming the photos were taken
some time around 1850, based on the very latest it could be would be 1859 –
because of the station and the very earliest it could be around 1840 because of
the development of photography, it may be helpful to have a look at the street
map of Ramsgate for 1849.
This is a very big picture, but is should open fairly easily
on most devices, because of the way I have published it online, here is the
link http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/1849map2/
The cart things on wheels are bathing machines and relate
the management of Victorian modesty before the invention of the bathing
costume. Basically you got into the machine, stripped off while someone pushed
it into deep enough water to cover you up, then you got into the sea.
This was enhanced by a group of people on the harbour wall
with telescopes, and eventually developed to the bikini in Ramsgate in about
1939, see https://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/miss-joydays-ramsgate-and-french-lie.html
Staying on the subject of Ramsgate visitors and residents,
you may wonder what is happening inside their minds in the here and now, I
don’t think you could get much closer than looking at the pictures of the books
that went out on the shelves in the bookshop in Ramsgate today.
My take is that as they are mostly replacing copies of books
that people have bought recently, this is the closest the amateur
anthropologist can get to looking inside now, so here is the link http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/penguin-classics-in-bookshop.html
Hi Michael, I think you need to edit your typo "...Ramsgate Sands Railway station was built in 1960...". Just an observation.
ReplyDeleteOk you did it :)
DeleteDavid corrections are always useful, I do try to post it, link it to a few facebook groups, have a cuppa read it through but it's the very devil reading something you have just written and noticing the errors in it. You can only really read something for the first time if you haven't written it.
ReplyDelete