Category: Trip

Many, many years ago I read a horror novel set in Margate. I don’t remember what it was called, but I never forgot the town. Today, on a very comfy high speed train, we visited this fading seaside resort.

When we arrived a light rain had ended and it was still and cold. The beach was massive and flat and the tide was out.

It was quite remarkable how much land was revealed with the tide out. During our stay it only came in a little bit, so we never saw (for instance) these moored boats actually floating!

We had a few sights we wanted to see in Margate, but one in particular stood above all the others. About ten minutes walk from the shore we came upon this unassuming place:

We walked in, paid £4 apiece, and walked down some dark stairs into the earth to find ourselves here:

It’s called The Shell Grotto, and is an unusual underground grotto with 4.6 million shells plastered into the walls and ceilings.

It’s a mysterious place which was accidentally discovered in 1835 during an excavation. There are no records of the place before it was  discovered and it is unknown who made it or when. 

The grotto has been on public exhibit for 170 years, and visitors are free to form their own opinions. Is it a religious place? Artistic? Just a whimsy? Analysis of the plaster and carbon dating of the shells has been inconsistent.

Whatever it is (a temple to Dagon!) it was a remarkable place to visit and alone made the trip to Margate worthwhile.

That’s a single gherkin, which KLS ordered at a fish’n’chip restaurant. It cost £0.50 and despite being much bigger tastes the same as those in Oz. Delicious!

The boardwalk at Margate has a bunch of arcades, most of which have those coin-pusher machines. This one used 2p coins, paid out bootleg Pokemon mini-figures and tickets that I redeemed for a bootleg R2-D2 toy. It only cost £7 but was a lot of fun 🙂

There’s also an amusement park (Dreamland) with a bunch of good rides. Sadly the (only) roller coaster was closed, else we would have ridden it.

Margate was great. The train trip was fun, the weather great, and the sights worth seeing. It’s best years may be behind it, and we’ll never return, but we’re glad we went.

Back to London today on a comfy train. We’re both getting pretty worn out!

Did a bit of shopping – buying you a souvenir maybe!

Tomorrow, a day trip…

St Fagans National History Museum is a little like the ‘Old Sydney Town’ of Wales, which means it’s a open-air museum showcasing what life was like in Wales hundreds of years ago.

It’s broadly divided into two halves, one containing the farms and village buildings; the other the castle and gardens. The buildings are (mostly) original and have been moved there from all over Wales. It’s not restricted to one period or region, and there’s a large variety of buildings to explore (from houses to stores to working buildings). I particular liked a terrace house with six units that had been furnished for six eras from 1830 until 1985!

We found ten piglets in one of the farms! There were other animals (sheep, cows, ducks etc) as well. There’s also recreations going on (since most of the equipment still works) and shops sell period food.

The castle side included an old manor house (the top photo shows the other side) surrounded by beautiful gardens. We both found this side of the museum the best.

We didn’t see everything. It’s massive and would take many hours. It was quite hot today and we were both tired after several hours of exploring. It was siesta time!

But not before a stop at an amazing retro game store I randomly found on the Internet. It was loaded with stuff I may had bought if I didn’t worry about getting it home, but in the end I ended up adding the first (and last) Spectrum game to my collection:

That tape (which still loads!) is 29 years old 🙂

I asked the proprietor if he had any Zzap or Crash magazines (my holy grails) in stock. Incredibly he did, but burned them in a bonfire ~3 weeks ago because no one ever wanted them and he didn’t have the space. It almost brought a tear to my eye 🙂