I braved the Big Storm looking out to sea in Margate. A bit of rain, a high wind, and days of glorious sunshine on either side of it. It was an open house weekend hosted by some of Margate’s many resident artists, and I took my hangover for a tour of Resort, a collective working out of the old Pettman’s removals warehouse.

The building is unusual in Margate, which is low on large-scale Victorian warehouses. Artist Jill Pantony told me that Pettmans had once been the storage place for Victorian bathing machines, the mobile changing rooms that protected bather’s dignity.

As a result the ceilings inside the warehouse were double height and the spaces dramatic. She wasn’t wrong. The vast interior space has been divided up with sheds constructed of beautiful odds and ends. In the back is a warren of smaller rooms, with highly covetable studio spaces, each with a mezzanine for ‘storing work’ (sleeping). The centre of the room has a huge table for meetings, plus plan chests and print machinery. Below is a shot of it by Lino Cut Boy.

The ever-excellent Curio blog has an interview with members of Resort here, which makes working in the building sound both chilly and exciting. I love their thoughts on being in Cliftonville, rather than Margate Old Town too. It feels healthy for the artistic revival of the town to spread outwards, into the unloved magnificence of Victorian Clifftonville.

Fancy a nose about yourself? There is still another open house weekend this year on 2nd and 3rd November 2013. Pettman’s Depository, 50 Athleston Road, Cliftonville, CT9 2BH.