A Carnival of Local History and Heritage
We shall start with Ramsgate Mitch, because I had the site open in one of my tabs: "more 'Lantern' news..." and this short ditty deals with a missing lantern(?) I was not entirely clear and was not able to find the post that it was a follow up to. If anyone wants to update me then I will update this. I traced things as far as ericsgate.blogspot.com which is an invite only blog and there the trail went cold. (Just as I got to the end of writing this item I spotted a mention in an off topic comment so hopefully I'm just being blind and can edit or update shortly).
So on to other topics...
Ramsgate Harbour is another popular topic and generally produces a lot of maps and old photographs. Zumiweb has an old plan of the harbour in a post entitled "Harbour of Sand". Michael Child has by far the most images of the harbour to look at from the simple post entitled "Christmas" and it's brother entitled "Christmas greetings to the massive page of full sized images Old pictures of Ramsgate Harbour (6) at michaelsbookshop.com.
We need only stray a little away from the harbour to the Marina Esplanade and Michael again gives us more to look at as "Every Picture tells a Story". This area gets a good mention by the BBC here which focuses on what there is today. On the other hand "Ramsgate Public AirRaid Shelter & Scenic Railway" on the Subterranea Britannica website gives a grand view of what the railway system might have once been like.
Shifting now to Margate (where recently the Shell Lady of Margate caused negative comment from both turneroundmargate.com and margatearchitecture.blogspot.com) we hear the sad news that according to Margate Architecture "Margate Museum Under Threat of Closure" this was also noted by the Joyland Books forum in a thread entitled "Margate Museum - threat of closure". This was picked up with the usual anti-Tory outrage by Labour member David Green on his blog in "Massive Support for Ramsgate Museum" (19 comments when I checked). You can also read details in some email group archives here and also at Thanet Star in "Why did no one tell me Thanet has a museum or six?" where I pointed out that I had lived in Thanet my entire life and did not know about the Margate Museum which suggests to me that the publicity department (aka the tourism lot at TDC) need to pull their finger out. (Thanet Beachcombers suggested another idea in "Margate History Archives")
You can bet your life that I have missed plenty out that could be included in such a round up (which leaves space for other bloggers to do better) but hopefully I have given a taste for the History and Heritage issues being covered in and around Thanet.



Michael Child wrote: