all the
FUNICULARS *
CLIFF LIFTS *

I could have taken the train one stop to Margate, but the station is not very near the old lift. I found that a bus called The Loop would drop me off much closer, and since it runs every eight minutes the average travel time would be shorter than the train. At the stop at Queens Road I nodded hello to an old man waiting on the bench. He wondered which bus I wanted, and I told him, and he said it could be a long time before it comes. I countered that it was supposed to be every eight minutes, but he told me that was not his experience with it. More than ten minutes later two of them came along. I boarded the first one, and the two The Loops played tag all the way to Margate— if one made the next stop, the other would pass, unless someone on board requested the stop. Which bus would win? I don't even remember. At length the bus robot announced the Athelstan Road stop, in the Cliftonville neighborhood, and that was my cue.

Margate looks a little shabby compared to Broadstairs. To be sure, there are people shopping in the main streets, and many small hotels in the rows of houses. It's not dead gone. It has potential. It needs some love. The abandoned sea front around The Lido is particularly sad. A place that once hosted thousands with the beach, a pool, restaurants, and entertainment, now sees not much more than a few people walking dogs and the occasional fool like me. Nearly a hundred years ago T.S. Eliot, writing part of "The Waste Land" in a shelter on the upper promenade, put to pen the words, "On Margate sands. ⋮ I can connect ⋮ Nothing with nothing. ⋮ The broken fingernails of dirty hands." It beats me what he meant, and yet I feel it.

The Cliftonville Lido was built in 1926, but behind the Art Deco front buildings was a resort a hundred years older called Clifton Baths, much of it dug out of the chalk. Inside were sea water pools, one of which was set aside for women and children, and storage for bathing machines, the closed carts that brought women out into the water to swim so that they would not have to walk on the sands improperly dressed. The Baths were altered over the years to meet new requirements, and the Lido was the last and most extensive improvement. Its developers added a large semi-circular outdoor swimming pool, a theater, a zoo and aquarium, and bars and restaurants. While the Lido had stairs inside, and maybe a vertical elevator, the crowds it drew also kept the cliff lift busy. Fifty years later the crowds had drifted away to more distant resorts. The lift was abandoned, the big outdoor pool was closed in 1977, and everything was closed by 1980 except one pub located near street level.

The upper station of the lift is marked by low cinderblock walls to which someone has taken the trouble to apply white paint. I cannot give as much credit to the work order to pour concrete over the track without even removing the wheel that connected the cable to the vertical weight. A broken blue rope indicates that the local youths have tried their hands at a sport other than scrawling on the walls with spray paint. And then one day... something happened, where that red board lies.

Addendum: A reader provided some information after this page was first published. The block walls were added not too long ago, because the original metal fence began falling apart. The red metal board covers a hole in the floor that would drop trespassers into the space where the engines had been.

Below is an image from a short amateur film with faded color, showing the car and the upper station. A photograph in Mr Easdown's book shows that the car was a brighter blue and that the lower station was an area surrounded by railings like the ones at the top. I'm surprised the car is so closed in. It could have been much more open on the sea side.

You have to go see the remains from below to appreciate the horrible condition the lift is in. Resolving to leave no tern unstoned (though I saw no terns), I found a way down to the lower promenade along the beach.

The red fence prevents motor vehicles from driving over a section of pavement that is just a roof over part of the Lido.

This might be another one with a 45 degree slope.

Before we leave Margate I want to put in a word for an overlooked attraction, the Margate Caves. Like the Chislehurst Caves, they are really a chalk mine, but these are at multiple levels and have high ceilings. I didn't realize that the caves had reopened to the public after fifteen years just two months before I went there. With support from a range of charities there is a new visitor center and cafe around the entrance. I was told that parts of it are not fully explored and that the caves might extend as far as the Clifton Baths a few blocks away. By the way my guide, old enough to remember The Lido, pronounced it "lie doe", not "lee doe".

I took a The Loop bus back to Margate, and had lunch. All this in one morning! I had noticed near Broadstairs station a museum dedicated to local genius Thomas Crampton, which had a sign outside about opening at two o'clock. Since it was twenty of two when I got back to the station I decided to take a short walk. Unfortunately the sign was for summer months, so it was still closed when I got back. Among his works was a design for steam locomotives with a low-slung boiler and firebox over non-powered wheels and a pair of very large drive wheels mounted far back. My interest was parochial. I have seen in histories of New Jersey railroads pictures of a very odd looking "Crampton" engine on the Camden and Amboy Railroad. It may have been the only one in America. A less extreme version was popular for a time on French railways.