Computer Bug at The Walpole Bay Hotel and the Brutal Car Park, a Distorted View of Margate.

Having left Margate Museum I continued my journey in Margate http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop910a/id10.htm museums tend to leave us in need of some refreshment.

The paintings in Margate museum had stimulated my artistic senses but unfortunately the car parking had run out.

This made it impossible to dally among the charming old buildings.

No worries though as I remember once asking a council officer what he thought was the most iconic building, his response was the multi-storey car park – I think he may have designed it – not sure if the car park I had to return to was the right one, I decided it would have to suffice.
I am afraid that the architecture of the brutal brings out a desire in me for extreme civilisation, something not always available in 2010, unless of course you know the location of a hole in the time space continuum, fortunately one of these is located in Walpole Bay.

The waitress arrived with civilisation, I am afraid I consumed the strawberry, half a scone and several cups of tea before I remembered to photograph this.

Fortunately there was a waiter available who understood how to civilise first one child

and then the other.

In the ensuing calm I thought I would do some of my computer chores, this went well until I tried to access last weeks planning applications,

as you see my computer developed a bug.

Strangely enough I seem to have the same bug on all of the other computers that I have tried since. Eventually today I tried communicating with various people at the council about this, in case it was their bug.

For some reason none of them have replied, I expect this was armless enough, I don’t suppose they have any applications that they wish to conceal, so we can’t object to them.

Here are the Walpole Bay Hotel and museum pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop910a/id11.htm

Some pictures of Margate Museum

Sorry about the lack of replies to comments emails and so on, I have been slightly diverted into considerations about Tudor Margate, the construction of Tudor houses and the like.

It isn’t easy to visualise Margate in Tudor times, bits of information are coalescing, here is an example.

In 1565, it’s easer to quote the Queens Commissioners: “Mergate hath houses 108. Persons lacking proper proper Habitaycyions 8. Boates and other vessels from 1 to 46 tons 10. Persons employed in carrying grain and fishing 60.”

Anyway my mind has temporarily strayed into the history of Margate.

Margate museum also made some sort of impression on me as I hadn’t visited it for some time, hence the pictures of the pictures there

I did distort them a bit to fit in the blog post.

It is also good to hear that despite closing the museums the council has been engaged in a major local history project of its own see http://www.thanet.gov.uk/news/latest-press-releases/crematorium-scanning.aspx?lang=en-gb

Anyway here are the pictures of Margate Museum http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop910a/id9.htm

Also just opposite the museum is a useful café for a cup of tea, featured in the pictures.

Photos of the Tudor House in Margate

One of the buildings open as part of this weekend’s activities was The Tudor House. The only part that wasn’t open was the cellar, so I managed to get quite a few pictures of the rest.

This was the first time I have visited this marvellous old building and I very much enjoyed my visit.

Before I look into the history of this building I am putting down my initial impression of this building, I would like to make it quite clear that this isn’t an expert historical opinion, just my ideas from a first visit.

I know this sounds a bit stupid but the upstairs seems to be older and more authentic than the downstairs.

I have had some involvement with very old buildings over the years. I also have done a certain amount of carpentry and have for instance used an adze in earnest.

An example of what I mean is that it looks like some of the timbers in the downstairs part have been sawn planed and then have had marks put on them with a gouge, to make them look like they have been cut with an adze.

Another observation with my engineering hat on was what appears to be some asbestos used in the construction of a small part of one of the ceilings that may be dangerous.

My understanding is that Margate is the oldest of our seaside towns, this idea is a bit on the vague side and is mostly based on the kings letters to the Lords Warden of the Cinque Ports, written between the mid 1200s and about 1600.

Looking at John Speed’s map of Kent drawn in 1611 Margate looks to be the only substantial town in Thanet, about a quarter of the size of Canterbury or a third of Sandwich at that time.

I would think the cellar of the house is the oldest part, probably late medieval say about 1300 give or take 100 years either way.

By the late 1500s I would doubt there was much in the way of oak growing locally and so I would expect that most of the timber would have come from shipwrecks.

The stripy look, I mean the exposed beams on the outside, isn’t how the house would have looked either. Although these old timber frame houses were constructed with a wooden frame, and daub plastered onto thin strips of wood nailed to the timber frame, the thin timber strips were nailed onto the outside, across the timber frame. So the outside would have looked like an old plaster wall, fairly flat all over.

I would say that at sometime around 1300 someone built a timber frame house, probably a single story, over the cellar that is under about a quarter of the left hand end of the house, looking from the front.



The bottom part of the timber frame rots away, even oak after a while and has to be replaced.

I would have thought that from that time a serries of rebuildings and repairs, using the materials from the previous incarnation of the building and in the style of the period, went on until about 1600.

Most of the surrounding buildings would have of a similar style and construction in about 1600 and as they wore out would have been replaced with brick ones, between then and about 1900.

Poorer peoples buildings would have built with timber frames throughout this period too.

The chimneys are obviously old and were probably built at different times as the building developed.

Click on the link for the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop910a/id8.htm

Sunday Ramble, Thanet District Council mislay Jews Do.

Event on Margate harbour arm other events held at this venue Margate Market: Sun 12 Sep 2010 12:00 to 16:00. Rare opportunity to take a look inside Margate's Tudor House, thought to date from the early 1500s, and once owned by 'King of Margate', Francis Cobb. With free family entertainment on Saturday.

Individuals and small groups welcome - 35 maximum.

Access opposite the Royal Sea Bathing Hospital; event starts at 10.30.

There is a word for this sort of thing, makes the person who wrote it feel hot and go all red, oh what is it, starts with M, I think. Oh yes embarrassing – thank God for the spell checker.

This is what the council have to say about, The European Day of Jewish Culture and Heritage at Ramsgate http://www.visitthanet.co.uk/thedms.asp?dms=13&p1=db&p2=ev&feature=1037&GroupId=1&venue=3201210&easi=true and this is the actual program of today’s events.

RAMSGATE Montefiore Synagogue & Mausoleum
Grade II* listed Regency synagogue by first Jewish architect David Mocatta.
Nearby Mausoleum of Sir Moses Montefiore. Honeysuckle Road, Ramsgate,
Kent CT11 8AA. T S 9.30am-2pm Guide on site

RAMSGATE Thanet & District Reform Synagogue
293a Margate Road, Ramsgate, Kent CT12 6TE. D T 11am-3pm. Exhibitions:
Art & Judaism, 25 Years of Reform Judaism in East Kent.

I wonder how the council came to think the, The European Day of Jewish Culture and Heritage is taking place at Ramsgate Harbour, when it is at Thanet & District Reform Synagogue in Margate Road, Ramsgate.

Or how their directions to get there say that “access is from: Honeysuckle Road, Ramsgate CT11 8AA Dumpton Park Drive, Ramsgate CT11 8AD, entrance east of the Montefiore Medical Centre.”

As they also say that his is where Ramsgate Market is held, there may be some congestion somewhere on market day.

All of this would be funny – what am I talking about here it is funny – if it wasn’t that these are the councils directions to potential tourists.
There will be more of this ramble as the day progresses.

Thanet District Council’s Website, funny if it wasn’t us paying for it.

Having done everything I could think of to get the council to promote this weekend’s events in some sort of balanced way, I had a look to see if there had been any improvement.

They seem to have balanced thing up by deleting everything from their homepage that relates to events that are happening this weekend in Thanet.

The link to “Heritage Open Days come to Margate” has gone, it is hard to say if this was by accident or design, as the other part of their homepage that promotes local events removes them for the day that they are actually on.

This means that http://communityportal.thanet.gov.uk/events/event/?EventID=610 that they were promoting yesterday, isn’t there today, because today is the day the event is actually happening, this happens to all of the events posted in the part of their homepage called “Events”.

The bizarre nature of this part of their homage doesn’t stop there, the top event there is “Murderers, Magicians, Madmen and Monarchs” if you click on this link it takes you to another page on the council’s website http://www.thanet.gov.uk/Events.aspx?EventID=561

This page tells you all about the event, apart that is from where the event is happening.

The next link in the list is called “An evening with World Tree Music” this event isn’t even in Thanet.

All of this would perhaps be amusing if it wasn’t for two things, one being that we are paying for this website and the other that we are paying for the council, to open various council owned buildings this weekend.

The council run tourism website isn’t much better, see http://www.visitthanet.co.uk/ some events are there if you look hard enough, some are not.

The fundamental problem here is that the council’s tourist information officers, the people who actually know what’s on in Thanet, don’t appear to have the facility to control and publish what is on any of the councils various web pages that are about what’s supposed to be on.

Something like a simple page showing the week's main events in Thanet just doesn’t exist and with so much of our economy based on the hope of getting people from other areas to visit Thanet, this sort of chaos isn’t good.

Anyone who doubts this only has to try and use the internet to find out what’s on here, with the council monopolising most of the high search engine results with various different and failed web presences, that claim to answer the simple question, what’s on in Thanet?

Are Thanet District Council Anti-Semitic and against multi-culturalism?

There are various historic buildings open in Thanet this weekend; among them are several places of worship.

There is a link on the councils homepage called “Heritage Open Days come to Margate” this takes you to the following page http://www.thanet.gov.uk/news/latest-press-releases/heritage-open-days.aspx St. John’s Parish Church and Margate Baptist Church but nothing about the two Thanet synagogues that are open this weekend; Montefiore Synagogue and Thanet & District Reform Synagogue.

Strangely enough the other historic buildings that are open in Ramsgate aren’t mentioned either St George's Church and The Grange, so perhaps the council are just Anti-Ramsgate and not Anti-Semitic, these things are a bit difficult to decode from the signals that come from the council.

I don’t think there is any way the council didn’t know about these buildings being open as this is an annual thing, indeed councillors and council officers go and look at the buildings and I have met some of them there.

I also posted about these buildings being open at http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/09/ramsgate-heritage-open-days-2010-10-12.html and I know that some of the local councillors and council officers read this blog, so presumably they must have known about it that way too.

Anyway I have made an official complaint to the council that they have behaved Anti-Semitically, as I believe councils are supposed to behave multiculturally.

This is particularly important in this instance as Moses Montefiore was one of the most prominent forerunners of multi-culturalism in the UK and his relationship with this country was vital to the forming of the multi-cultural society we enjoy today.

Ramsgate harbour slipways demolition

This is a follow up to “Plans to demolish the slipways in Ramsgate Harbour” that I posted on Wednesday.

I thought this mornings comment about the matter from our mayor was important enough to warrant a new post, here is the comment:


“Cllr David Green said...
The item before Ramsgate Town Council on Wednesday was just the demolition of existing buildings and railings. The new build proposal is expected next month.

The committee decided:

To Defer decision until the committee may consider, at its meeting to be held on 13 October 2010, both the Listed Building Consent application for demolition and the application for replacement building/s.

Amendment proposed by Cllr Green. Seconded by Councillor Doyle;

That the following concerns be raised with the Planning Department at the Thanet District Council;

1. That the District Council establishes whether the proposed new development is compatible with a viable slipway business and whether the new owners have the expertise needed to maintain business on Slipway 1.

2. That the District Council heritage officers report on the relationship between the proposed new building/s and the clock house to ensure that they complement each other.

3. That the District Council looks at the location of the new building in relation to the old public toilet block and consider a section 106 agreement to facilitate the removal of the public toilet block and incorporating it within the new building/s.

Substantive motion and amendment adopted.

RESOLVED”

Ed. The most interesting point here is that it would appear that the ownership of the slipways and ship repair business has already changed hands.

Ramsgate Heritage Open Days 2010 10-12 September and I admit to a persecution complex

Some of the historic buildings in Ramsgate are open to the public tomorrow and this weekend, details and links to photographs of the buildings below.

Montefiore Synagogue & Mausoleum open Sunday 12 September 9.30am-2pm, this is the building with the shortest opening time this weekend, so I recommend you plan your visit around the time this one is open. It really isn’t one to miss, here are the links to the pictures and information about it.
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Montefiore/index.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/clock/index.htm

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2009/09/montefiore-synagogue-and-mausoleum-open.html

St George's Church, Saturday: 1000-1800, Tower Tours 1130 & 1230 & 1430 & 1530

Sunday: 1200-1600, Tower Tours 1200 & 1400 & 1500

Links to the pictures

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop710/id4.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop710/id5.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop710/id6.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop710/id7.htm

The Grange Ramsgate Friday: 1000-1600

Saturday: 1000-1600

Sunday: 1000-1600

Links to the pictures

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/grange/index.htmhttp://www.michaelsbookshop.com/grange2008/

Now we come to the bit about having a few toys lose in the attic, I suppose the best thing in a case like this is to admit to the problem in the first instance.

The other day one of our own dear councillors and a member of our esteemed cabinet seemed to think I was developing delusions about the council; “I think the mistake you make is in believing that every aspect of life is micro-managed by the council” see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/09/local-councillors-blogs-and-beware-of.html

I believe the trickcyclist people call this querulant delusions, this is something like a persecution complex, well today I have to admit to once again thinking that Thanet District Council are persecuting Ramsgate.

I looked at the council’s homepage and although I could see an article there about Heritage Open Days in Margate, these querulant delusions completely prevented me from seeing the one about Heritage Open Days in Ramsgate.

My Therapist Johann Christian Reil, has produced the following therapy schedule.

First plunging me (the lunatic) into a bath full of live eels..

And then showing me a Katzenklavier, or cat-clavichord (pictured above), an instrument played by pressing keys attached to nails which in turn strike the tails of a series of cats arranged with care so as to miaow in tonally sequenced pain.”

I have been having the therapy and I am expecting to see the Ramsgate article appear there at any moment.

Update I am afraid that things are getting worse I have just suffered the delusion that the council’s Twitter update about “Shop Local in Thanet” says only, shop local in Margate, see http://twitter.com/ThanetCouncil/statuses/24023311694

This sort of thing is taking its toll on the eels and the cats.