A few Ramsgate pictures some old and more watercolour sketching in Canterbury Cathedral

A few Ramsgate pictures which you may recognise the what and where of, let me know if you don't

And today I have to admit to taking the day off, going to Canterbury and doing some watercolour painting in Canterbury Cathedral  

This is the cathedral watercolour, well a start at least 

A couple of progress pictures here 

you can sort of photograph the bit of the cathedral I am trying to paint

 Canterbury Cathedral has the builders in at the moment and I was hoping to paint the scaffold but couldn't get a seat with a veiw.

I also did a bit more of my painting of Canterbury Cathedral crypt.

Such comment as there is so far seems to be going on the individual photos on this Facebook post https://www.facebook.com/groups/516220578418850/permalink/1522019221172309/

A bit more progress with the pen and ink sketch from The Oak Hotel in Ramsgate’s café culture, looking towards The Royal Temple Yacht Club

So here is the part finished painting, drawing, whatever you want to call it of Ramsgate.

The top and the bottom of the picture got a bit disconnected, perhaps because of drawing them on different days, perhaps because in the back of my mind was the mixture between the early morning breakfast atmosphere at The Oak Hotel in Ramsgate which I rather like and the view which I also rather like.

Anyway here is the photo for aspiring art critics     

The Arches Bar Ramsgate Harbour a pen and watercolour sketch today.

OK I put my hands up, I should have spent the whole day working in my bookshop, as it was I skived off at about 10.30 didn’t get back until 12.30 and managed the above sketch.

The arches bar is very civilised, with unparalleled views across the harbour, excellent coffee and snacks, but most of all no one parking in front of you in the middle of a sketch.

As you can see the angle of the arches was a bit acute for drawing .

Well actually perhaps you can't so below what the scanner makes of the watercolour, all you can say about this is that it's different to what the camera makes of it and a photo cropped to around the edges of the picture so I can see the difference between what i made of the view and what the cameras made of it 

I guess to a greater or lesser extent the main difference is that my head rotates when I look at things, but I guess it does show what happens when you draw from life and not a photograph of life. 

Pen and Watercolour Sketches of Ramsgate Today

 This Pen and Watercolour Sketch was drawn from Pier Yard in Ramsgate outside Coffee Shack, decent cup of tea for 80p.

 This Pen and Watercolour Sketch is of the bottom of Queen Street in Ramsgate from caffé LATTE where I had my lunch, cheese salad and Coca Cola, I think this was around £4 and very good.

Four old prints of Ramsgate’s Eastcliff

 This first one is after 1860 as the Ramsgate Sands Railway Station can be seen. 

Update I have now pinned this print down exactly, it was commissioned for the book I publish: Delineations Historical and Topographical of the Isle of Thanet and the Cinque Ports by Edward Wedlake Brayley, http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/delineations_historical_and_topographical_of_the_isle_of_thanet_and_the_cinque_p.htm the plate for the print was engraved by William Deeble in 1817 and was taken from a drawing by HENRY G. GASTINEAU (1791-1876) who was a topographer and landscape artist. He trained as an engraver and then studied at the Royal Academy Schools, after which he travelled extensively in Great Britain painting the scenery as he went. He was elected Associate to the Old Watercolour Society (AOWS) in 1821 and became a full member (OWS) in 1823. From 1827, Gastineau worked in Camberwell as a drawing master, where he died on January 17th 1876. 
 
 The square towers on the left are the outbuildings to Eastcliff Lodge, these are still there and the Italianate greenhouse is built against them. the pointed towers on the right of the print are those of Eastcliff Lodge itself. This once stood in King George VI Park, obviously it was bought by the council and demolished.  

I have added a picture of Eastcliff Lodge by JMW Turner for clarification. As far as dating the print goes Eastcliff Lodge first appears as occupied in 1803 as a summer residence of Queen Caroline, so it was probably built around 1800. 

 This next one is before 1842 when the current lighthouse was built, the old one shown in the print was too near the end and tended to knock the spars off ships entering the harbour.

Obviously it as after 1817 when The Clock House was built by Benjamen Wyatt and George Louch.

Once again after 1860, I will add to the historical notes as aspects occur to me.

Many thanks to Ben – local antiquary, author of The Story of the Granville Hotel Ramsgate 1869-2012 (see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/the_granville_hotel___the_story_of_the_granville_hotel_ramsgate_1869_2012.htm ) and sometime author of various historical articles in local periodicals – for sending me the prints and for enhancing the image files. 

A Few Ramsgate Pictures and thoughts

Here are the pictures on the camera card these taken on Monday http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/810/id5.htm a few thoughts on them.

The new Cornish Pasty Co is open.

Ramsgate Town Partnership another deserted TDC asset not on the list of council to let see http://www.thanet.gov.uk/business/regeneration/commercial_premises_list.aspx as you see the list hasn’t been updated like much of the council website, so who knows just how much they have vacant that isn’t returning any rent.

Then the historic vessel pontoon still empty.

The Maritime Museum still closed.

Vista now open and it seemed fairly busy.

The Tug Portwey see http://www.stportwey.co.uk/ on no1 slipway.

Work is getting underway on the pavilion.

The hanging gardens of the Pleasurama cliff are now a fairly prominent feature.

Next today’s photographs http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/810/id6.htm

There was a dog swimming around in the outer basin, seemed quite happy and obviously unaware of the ban on dogs being there.

The security guards were there with their beach hut.

A blue sticker has appeared on the water quality sign, which seems to roughly translate as not such good water quality after heavy rain.

Then I heard a lot of banging about on the Pleasurama site, this transpired to be coming from an impromptu skate park that seems to be developing there instead of the development, good to see the site being put to some use.

Then something that amused me come one o’clock the security guards with the beach hut on the east pier seem to both knock off for lunch at the same time, so we go from the expensive protection to none at all.

Vista didn’t seem to be busy at all today, the rest of the places in the café culture that are usually busy seemed as busy as ever, I don’t know if this is significant of anything,

Finally back to King Street where the pavements and road surface is taking on a bit of a third world look.

Cliff collapse at Pegwell and a few other pictures and thoughts

Back at work in the bookshop this morning after a day off that was actually warm and sunny, I haven’t had much time for blogging or even answering my emails over the last couple of days, so apologies to anyone waiting for a reply.

Mixture of things really seem to have caused this, mostly the school holidays and keeping on top of the local books and local history questions.

I now have 130 local books in print so maintaining a fairly minimal stock of 20 copies of each means keeping on top of 2,600 books and even with that many one can run out of a title in less that a week or not sell as ingle copy of another title for months.

Anyway here are the various links to the pictures since my last post.

Thursday morning in Ramsgate http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/410/id6.htm nothing particularly special about them.

Next Thursday afternoon starting on the westcliff lots of cars parked up there and quite a lot of people about. I walked along the chalk – exposed at low tide – towards Pegwell as you can see there has been a fairly substantial cliff fall leaving some mobile homes a bit close to the edge for comfort. I finally wound up at the hotel if you want to know more about this building I publish a book about it and its surroundings see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/id131.htm

As you can see the boating pool was busy for the time of year, I think this may be at least partly due to the children’s play area there now being free.

Here is the link to the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/410/id7.htm

Next this morning before I opened the shop I walked up the east pier, some parts of it are looking a bit dilapidated and the café on the end is still closed, despite all of this as you can see the views are well worth walking up the pier for.

Here is the link to the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/410/id8.htm

Next a question for those of you that enjoy the pictures about the way I publish them up on the internet at the moment most of the pictures I put up are 1200 pixels wide and on my internet confection they take about a second each to load, the most I put on one page is about 150 meaning that the longest a page takes to load is 150 seconds. I believe this means that page loads faster than anyone could reasonably take to view the pictures.

Do you think that I am getting this about right? Do you want fewer pictures on a page? Would you like higher definition pictures? This page has three pictures of fish in the Belgian Café, that were caught by Ramsgate fishermen http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/410/id9.htm I have put one up the size I normally do one up medium size and one fairly large, so what do you prefer?


Finally many thanks to TDC for removing their misleading video, after I pointed out to them that they could be reported to trading standards under the misrepresentation of goods act, I was quite surprised not to receive a reply from them, perhaps it got lost in TDCIT.

A couple of short walks in Ramsgate and a few pictures

One way and another it was a very family orientated weekend during which we did a fair amount of entertaining so I didn’t get much of a chance to get out and take many pictures.

I did get out just after lunch yesterday and did get a short walk this morning between taking the children to school and opening my bookshop s here they are.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/310/id8.htm

The weather in Ramsgate this morning is about as good as it gets in early spring and I recommend if you get a chance that you take advantage of it.

Nothing much of note in the pictures apart from the one above, it would apper that someone has been investigating to find out why the wall at the top of the cliff by Augusta Stairs is sinking into the ground.

Morning walk pictures

There you go Don & Co mostly boats once I get as far as the harbour.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts129/id31.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts129/id32.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts129/id33.htm

A few thought on the pictures. First sorry I didn’t run them through the program I usually use to lighten the ones that come out too dark due to some peculiarity with this camera. As you can see I was very lucky with the tide the gate to the inner basin closed and the bridge was lowered just as I arrived there. Anyone know what the situation is with “The New Britannic” shown in the pictures? She is the Ramsgate pleasure boat that lifted 3,000 soldiers of the beach at Dunkirk during WW2, it looks as though some restoration work had started and then stopped.

Morning walk and Ramsgate town council

I have just published the latest town council documents at http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/2009/12/ramsgate-town-council-agenda.html I haven’t had a chance to read them yet.

I managed to get out for a short walk this morning the pictures are at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts129/id26.htm

A few things I noticed that appear in the pictures, a bit of damage to the Pleasurama hoardings, they have taken out more of the blockwork in the cliff façade my hope is that this will make them have a proper look at the foundations, the scaffolding has come off of the customs house after the restoration work on the front, there was more rubbish than usual in the inner basin, another new shop has opened in Ramsgate selling carpets.

Ramsgate town was very busy this morning when I bought the Christmas vegetables on the way back from my walk, I thought it an interesting reflection on the cost of Christmas that a turkey breast roast from the butcher and the vegetables for Christmas dinner for 20 people cost less than £20.
I have the bookshop open today for the final and forgotten presents, despite the folk myth women as well as men, about 50 50.

John Lennon seen in Ramsgate’s Italianate Greenhouse and more pictures and ramble.

It has been pointed out by a few people that you can see faces in the picture if the Italianate greenhouse at the top of my previous post (click on it to enlarge) the most sceptical person here said I can’t see anyone apart from John Lennon on the right of the doorway.

This all lead me to remember that I had a folder of pictures of Ramsgate some of which are a little on the ghostly side due to having been copied from the original collection using a camera, click on the link for them http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop3/id10.htm

Some points of interest are:

Dancing at the eastcliff bandstand, the dance floor doesn’t look like the one we have now, so perhaps we could get it replaced with something we can afford.

The original rustic bridge over the Albion Gardens waterfall.

The flowerdew grave.

Rather primitive freight handling arrangements at the harbour.

Moses shipyard where the port is now.

The rather drastic marine drive proposal.

A concert party on the pav’s sundeck.

The building of the military parade brick arches.

The rather ghostly image of the building that used to house the camera obscura.

I think most of them are pretty obvious but I will be happy to answer any comments about anything you can’t identify.

A few pictures from the last few days, including getting the Christmas tree photographed for the children and some of the snow, click on the link for them http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop3/id11.htm

I figure that anyone getting this far through my ramble deserves a small Christmas present one of the books I publish is "Keble's Penny Guide to Margate and the Isle of Thanet 1885" I have put sample pages up and you can click on this link if you want to buy the printed version http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/id323.htm alternatively you can click on this link to read the whole guide now http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts129/id21.htm

I will ramble on.

Whiteout in Ramsgate pictures

A few pictures from today, the polar bears are in Ramsgate garden centre, nice displays, I think the snow had meant that water got into their wiring as the power kept going off.

Click on the link for the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts129/id20.htm

A few pictures from this morning’s walk in Ramsgate

Although these pictures are mostly just for the people who for one reason or another can’t go for a morning walk in Ramsgate a few points to note.

1 this bench as far as I know it has been like this pretty much since it was put in.

2 the missing trees just dug out by the council, was it the salt spray that killed them or is it the brackish water in the ground?

3 What did they try to clean the Wellington Crescent dance floor with, looks like a floor polisher too me.

4 This chimneystack does seem to be leaning rather a lot to me.

5 Nice new signs for Marina Road, I have to admit I didn’t know what it was called before.

I have put the numbers under the pictures to show what I mean.

Click on the link for the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts129/id10.htm

Ramsgate Town Council update, some more pictures, in the wind, and a ramble.

Boundary Road Gas Storage Facility and other issues have gone up the town council’s website click on the link to view http://www.ramsgatetc.kentparishes.gov.uk/default.cfm?pid=messages

One thing you can certainly say about this website that Dave Green has written is that it’s green, yep one of the greenest websites I have ever seen.

It was very windy this morning and I am afraid I didn’t manage to capture this well on the few pictures I took on my morning walk, click on the link to view them http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id29.htm

One problem was that the sand blowing through the air just made the pictures look fuzzy.

I can’t quite believe what I have just read but the thing about the gasworks and the water seems to be saying that they are pumping drinking water within Ramsgate, this is what it says:

"I have a response from Morgan Sproates, TDC contaminated land officer.
In relation to providing you with reassurance that the site does not present a wider risk to the environment, there are two key reports highlighting the findings with respect to Groundwater Resources (MWH Final P20 Quantitative Risk Assessment, Ref. 410/002601, May 2004) and Human Health (MWH Quantitative Human Health Risk Assessment Final Issue 1, Ref. 410/002601, May 2004).

In brief, the controlled waters risk assessment indicates that the
chalk groundwater has the possibility to be impacted by contaminants in the made ground and perched groundwater (e.g. coal tars, etc...).
However, the chalk groundwater potable water supply abstraction points located 1300m from the site are not considered to have the potential to be adversely impacted by contaminants associated with the main sources of contamination on site (pls see attached map highlighting Environment Agency Source Protection Zones in relation to the Boundary Rd Gas Holder Facility). The Quantitative HHRA indicates that the USEPA Model (Tier 2 Assessment) has identified concentrations of Polyaromatic Hydrocarbons in groundwater beneath the site exceeding contemporary Screening Levels. However, it maintains that due to the depth of groundwater (~16mbgl) it is unlikely that there is a significant health [risk] via groundwater volatilization to indoor air which could impact Off-site Residents. As previously stated, should the site be redeveloped, then extensive remediation would be required to restore the site to standards required to support a vulnerable end use. To answer your question though, given that the general public does not have access to this site, there is not anticipated to be any current significant risk of harm to human health via available exposure pathways.”

I really hope this is a typo or some other sort of error because if it isn’t then it is taking the most appalling risk with peoples lives.

I will add a bit more to this as the morning progresses.