Mini Moderns come to Margate
The Hoy pub in Margate is advertising on its chalkboard a ‘Cockney Night’. On ‘Cockney Night’ they’re promising both pie ‘n’ eels and entertainment from Chas ‘n’ Dave. I’m obviously very excited.
But the peerless geniuses behind the heartbreaking ‘Ain’t No Pleasing You’ aren’t the only dynamic duo getting in on the Margate scene. Designers Mini Moderns have launched a new range called Hinterland, including prints based on the town’s handsome Harbour Arm.
The full range takes inspiration from the Kent coast, with Margate included at the invitation of the Turner Contemporary gallery. The main impetus behind the collection, however, would seem to be Dungeness, just down the coast. It’s a shingle spit in the shadow of Dungeness Power Station, and as I found when I visited, one of the strangest and most compelling bits of British seaside imaginable.
Photography: Andrew Boyd
Keith and Mark have bought themselves a bolthole – or a But ‘n’ Ben as my Scottish other halves would have it – in Dungeness. It’s a Victorian railway car, a number of which were placed on the Dungeness shingle and used as homes thorough the second half of last century. They have stripped it right back to its bones and created a beautiful holiday home – for a full before-and-after perv-out check out the feature on Design Sponge.
Photography: Andrew Boyd
“We had always dreamed that we would stroll in from the wind swept beach into a deep hot bath,” say the pair, which for my money really is the British holiday home dream.
Photography: Andrew Boyd
What a great holiday home/But ‘n’ Ben. There used to be half a dozen ex railway carriages near Marazion with a fabulous view of St, Michael’s Mount until they fell into disrepair, were vandalised and ultimately removed and replaced by some ersatz block chalets. How much better if they could have had the Dungeness treatment.
That is the first place in an age I have been seething, spitting jealous of. Nice to reawaken those emotions! On another, less jealousy based note, here is fabric that I am currently coveting and it has similarities to the wallpaper shown:
https://d2d00szk9na1qq.cloudfront.net/Product/f36f2707-2a8b-4d1d-8ce3-566edd6249fb/Images/Large_0308866.jpg
If that doesn’t work, which is highly likely, then Google ‘Michael Miller Waterfront Park in Starfruit’, [try and shield your eyes from the other stuff]. Paws off it Jill, this ones mine!
Oooh thass nice. I can’t see why it wouldn’t work, it looks ace. I’m paws off I promise – the man’ll go nuts if I invent another reason to hang curtains.