How the 'Down From London' hipsters saved this faded seaside town

Outside the Sunset Rock Shop on Marine Drive in Margate a blackboard declares: “We’ve got more Margate Rock than East London has hipsters.” To which the obvious retort is: “Yes, because all the East London hipsters have moved to Margate.”

Not for nothing has this resort on Kent’s Isle of Thanet coast gained the ironic epithet Shoreditch-on-Sea in recent years.

A decade ago, says Keith Marsh, the owner of the Sunset Rock Shop and the author of that sly blackboard slogan, Margate was on its knees. “Every shop in Market Place was for sale or derelict,” he says, referring to the heart of the Old Town. “Now you’ve got your hipsters coming down and every shop is occupied.”

Sure enough, down in Market Place I find a real-life specimen of the Shoreditch species. Paintbrush in hand, 28-year-old Francesca Wilkins is putting the finishing touches to the freshly painted aquamarine frontage of her new venture, The Margate Bookshop. She admits that until recently she lived in East London - not a million miles from you know where - but resents being categorised as a “DFL” - Down from London.

“The bookshop is very much for the community here, that’s where the name comes in,” she says. “It’s not for people from Shoreditch.” The cheap rents were a pull, she concedes, but it was also the creative atmosphere that persuaded her to move: “It’s seeing all these other people coming in and fulfilling their pipe dream, giving it a go, that gave me the inspiration.”

The evidence of people giving it a go is everywhere, from the galleries, studios and vintage clothing stores of the Old Town to the hipster hangouts on Northdown Road in Cliftonville (the apotheosis being Cliffs, a “cafe, record shop, yoga studio, hair salon and coffee roastery”). Banks have been “re-purposed” as book shops or galleries. The former main Post Office on Cecil Square, is now “Post Office”, a bar/restaurant with a trendy menu (“Ortiz sardines with marjoram”) while the old Woolworth’s on High Street is a “multi-purpose educational space”.

Hotels and restaurants have also upped their game. I stay at Sands Hotel on the seafront, a cool boutique hotel with a fine restaurant, and there are many innovative and modestly priced eateries dotted about. You get the picture. All of this energy and unexpectedness, plus the time-honoured seaside pleasures of golden sands, dramatic sunsets (famously captured by JMW Turner) and the re-vamped Dreamland amusement park (its name written vertically in neon), makes Margate a brilliant place for a short visit.

The upswing in its fortunes can be traced back to the opening, in 2011, of Turner Contemporary, a cluster of rectilinear shapes providing world-class gallery space (with free admission) overlooking the harbour. Its Head of Exhibitions, Sarah Martin, wrinkles her nose at the mention of the “Shoreditch effect” but admits there is truth to it.

“What’s really tangible is that sense of a young demographic, people in their late 20s, 30s, who are maybe freelance creatives, coming down and setting things up here at quite a grassroots level. The gallery has absolutely been a catalyst for that. That’s why there is such a vibrancy to the town - a DIY approach if you like.”

I popped into Turner Contemporary for a sneak preview of its latest exhibition, “Seaside: Photographed”, a superb show of some 300 images of the British seaside, which opened earlier this week. “The exhibition includes work by people you’d expect, such as Martin Parr, but it’s also about showing lesser-known artists, newer voices, work from archives that has never been seen before,” says Sarah Martin. “It’s hopefully telling a slightly different story, more diverse.”

Three weeks after the photographic exhibition closes in September 2019 (to go on tour to Southampton, Newlyn and Blackpool), Turner Contemporary hosts the Turner Prize - another notch on its hipster belt. “Part of the reason it’s coming here is about the gallery and our programme but it’s also about that creative ecology in the town and wanting to support and help develop that,” says Martin.

The Margate regeneration is only partial - there are still plenty of signs of deprivation - but the town has found a way forward. And the heartening thing is that there seems to be a real sense of shared community between locals and incomers. Keith Marsh, the owner of the Sunset Rock Shop, remembers the decades of dereliction and scruff and has nothing but praise for the DFLs. “I love them,” he says. “It’s like that film Field of Dreams. ‘Build it and they will come’.”

Margate mapped

Where to stay

Sands Hotel on Marine Drive (double b&b from £130; telegraph.co.uk/tt-sands-hotel). From May 2019 until Jan 12 2020 the hotel is offering a “Turner Seaside Snap” package to coincide with Turner Contemporary exhibition (£175pp for two nights b&b including a three-hour lesson with local photographer and an exhibition guidebook).  

Where to eat

Angela’s is a classy little seafood place offering two courses from just £15 (01843 319978; angelasofmargate.com).

Turner Contemporary

Open Tues-Sun 10am-6pm daily in July and Aug; Tues-Sun 10am-5pm in winter. Admission free (turnercontemporary.org). Seaside: Photographed is on May 2019-Sept 8 2020; Turner Prize Sept 28 2019-Jan 12 2020.

What to do

Dreamland is open weekends and holidays, (free; dreamland.co.uk). Margate Museum has a fascinating local history collection (from £1.50; margatemuseum.org). Shell Grotto is a set of tunnels decorated in seashell mosaics, the origin and age of which remain unknown (from £4; open daily until October; shellgrotto.co.uk). Be sure to also check out the seafront shelter at Nayland Rock where TS Eliot wrote part of The Waste Land in 1921.

For more information head to the Visitor Information Centre in the Droit House near Turner Contemporary (open 10am-5pm daily in summer; visitthanet.co.uk).

The evidence of people giving it a go 'in Margs' is everywhere, from the galleries, studios and vintage clothing stores of the Old Town to the hipster hangouts on Northdown Road in Cliftonville (the apotheosis being Cliffs, a “cafe, record shop, yoga studio, hair salon and coffee roastery”). Banks have been “re-purposed” as book shops or galleries. The former main Post Office on Cecil Square, is now “Post Office”, a bar/restaurant with a trendy menu (“Ortiz sardines with marjoram”) while the old Woolworth’s on High Street is a “multi-purpose educational space”.