Surrey Homes | SH55 | May 2019 | Extensions & Outdoor Living supplement inside

Previous page: In the sitting room, one wall is papered in Cole & Son ‘Narina’ Above: The dining table is from Sweet Pea and
Willow and dining chairs from Twenty10. The mid-century sideboard is from Crystal Palace Antiques
Everything you’ve ever read about Margate’s
charming mix of tacky seaside attractions – the
quaintly faded Georgian old town and striking
new Turner Contemporary Gallery, all energised by the
influx of hipster East London emigrés – can be taken
in the moment your car wheels hit the seafront.
What is less well known is that just three miles east,
along the top of the protruding thumb of land that is
the Isle of Thanet, is an altogether different townscape,
in the charming neighbourhood of Westgate-on-Sea.
Officially a separate town, it adjoins Margate without
a break and feels more like a genteel neighbourhood in
the same burg. But in stark contrast to Margate’s bold
and bright 1920s funfair Dreamland, which you really
can’t miss on the main drag, Westgate’s cultural icon is
the beautiful Carlton Cinema. Built in 1910, it’s still
showing films – £3.50 all week, £4.50 for Lounge seats.
With the quaint Frederick’s café serving tea in
flowery china cups at the front of the building, you
expect to look out of the window into the small buzzy
high street and see a Suffragette strolling past.
Just three minutes’ walk from here, towards the sweeping
sands of St Mildred’s beach, brings you to the rugged stone
frontage of Hamilton Lodge, a substantial Victorian house,
in the Scots baronial style, built around 1875. And while
it’s impressive enough from the outside, once you step
through the front door, your eyes pop open in surprise.
Not just at a glimpse through the lilac-painted
45 surrey-homes.co.uk