3-046-914 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches at Margate, 1872. 'Under the Cliffs; on the Fort; on the Sands; the Jetty; A Day at the Seaside; Something Like a Bath. So, welcome Margate, with its keen bracing air, and its freedom from frigid formality...there is a racy earnestness about the Margate folk that contrasts favourably with the dawdling, lackadaisical apathy of genteeler places...children are busily engaged making huge sand fortresses, to be swept away by the next tide...Families...enjoy themselves together; papa taking out the child, shrill-screaming, half with delight, half terror, to give it a dip; Sarah Jane being meantime held by her lover till her dainty feet are wetted by the tide..."The fort" at Margate is affected by the quietly disposed. Here they may tranquilly inhale the sea-breezes as they watch the vessels making their way by aid of sail, or the steamers ploughing a path...heedless of wind or waves...On the Jetty, two streams of holiday folk are ever flowing; and on Saturday nights, especially, when the Husbands' boat is expected, the crowd is great indeed. The jokes are not all of them the newest...but...good fellowship prevails, and there is much hilarity as the men from the incoming boat are appropriated by families and borne off in triumph'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.