Margate

Margate, a seaport and municipal borough of England, in the Isle of Thanet, Kent, 3 miles W. of the North Foreland and 74 E. by S. of London, has for many years been the favourite seaside resort of cockney holiday-makers, who, during the season, by rail and by steamer, pour into the town in their thousands. Possessed of many natural advantages in its bracing air, good bathing, and excellent firm sands, Margate offers besides all the customary attractions of a watering-place, with its pier (900 feet long), jetty (upwards of a quarter of a mile in length), theatre, assembly-rooms, baths, zoological gardens, &c. It contains also two interesting churches—one exhibiting traces of Norman and Early English work, and the other with a tower of 135 feet, forming a conspicuous landmark; the Royal Sea-bathing Infirmary, founded 1792 and enlarged 1882; a town-hall (1820); and an extensive deaf and dumb asylum (1875-80-86). Formerly the port was the scene of the embarkation or landing of many royal and other persons, amongst the latter being the wounded brought back from the field of Waterloo. Queen Victoria visited the town in 1835, where too for a short time Turner the painter (one of whose earliest known sketches is a view of Margate church) was at school. Pop. (1801) 4766; (1891) 18,419.