48 hours in MARGATE

Thanks to a recent regeneration, the seaside town of Margate has its groove back. The momentum continues with a flurry of new hotels filling old buildings, and new antiques and interiors shops arriving on the scene

- Rosanna Morris discovers

There's a quiet yet palpable energy as you wander around Margate on the Kent coast. It's a feeling perhaps not dissimilar to what it must have felt like in the 1730s when this little-known Tudor fishing village was on the cusp of becoming one of the most popular seaside resorts in England.

Instead of plans for great Georgian terraces, squares, guest houses, theatres and libraries being drawn up by designers and entrepreneurs, though, it's these long-abandoned and empty historic buildings and landmarks from three centuries of holidays that are being resurrected once more.

Beginning with the opening of the beautiful B&B The Reading Rooms, on Hawley Square, in 2009, and the Turner Contemporary in 2011, sublime weekending has returned to once written-off Margate. And in the years that have followed, the town has rekindled its appeal. In the last three years, three luxury hotels as well as interiors and antiques shops have opened in what were once gritty bedsits and old stores. In 2023, a former Edwardian bathhouse was restored by Tracey Emin, who grew up in the town, and opened as an artist residency and studios (TKE Studios).