Granville Marina Ramsgate, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

1413/0/10029 EAST CLIFF 21-DEC-04 1-4 Granville Marina

II Purpose-built photographer's studio and part of a terrace of houses with shops on ground floor, currently restaurant and houses. Built in 1877, Architect J T Wimperis in Old English style. Forms an L-plan with no 1 projecting seawards, originally to conceal Ramsgate Sands railway terminus. EXTERIOR: No 1 is rendered with some timberframing and slate roof with gablets,terracotta ridge tiles and three cemented chimneystacks. Two storeys and attics: irregular fenestration of two windows to south east and four windows to north east. South east elevation facing the sea has a central tall cemented chimneystack with ribbed decoration flanked by sash windows, cambered to the first floor and octagonal corner turrets with conical tiled roofs. Flat arch to shopfront which now has late C20 triple steel shutters. The north east elevation has three windows to the main part and a fourth window in an elaborate corner turret to the right. Three flat-roofed dormers with sashes with vertical glazing bars. Ground and first floor have end cambered casements, larger on the ground floor and with circular designs to the transoms. The central window is in a projecting two storey timberframed porch with five-light sash window to the first floor and doorcase with circle designs to fanlight below. Octagonal-shaped corner turret has timberframed arches with plastered infill and conical tiled roof. the upper floors have three sash windows. The ground floor has taller windows and central doorcase with pattern of circles to the fanlights. Nos 2,3 and 4 are of painted brick with some ornamental tile-hanging and tiled roofs with hip to front. Two storeys and attics: one window to each house. Each property has a projecting hipped roof supported on pierced wooden brackets and a balcony with turned balusters forming part of full-height projections. The second floor has a central french window flanked by sidelights. The first floor to no 2 retains original tile-hanging of original courses of plain and curved tiles. Nos 3 and 4 have C20 weatherboarding on the first floor replacing the tile-hanging. Projecting five-light bay with sash windows. The first floor of nos 3 and 4 and the second floor of no 4 have some C20 alterations. Ground floors have triple divisions with large central arches and pattern of circles to fanlights. INTERIOR: Original staircases to rear of former shops. HISTORY: Part of Granville Marina, a scheme by the owner of the Granville Hotel, Edmund Davis, to link the hotel to East Cliff 70 feet below because in 1863 the London, Chatham and Dover Railway had built a station directly on the sands. The scheme combined strengthening of the sea defences with beach level pleasure gardens and shops for the use of the hotel guests. Nos 1-4 were built as shops with living accomodation above. No 1 was built as a photographers studio, projecting purposely to conceal the railway terminus building. Other shops included perfumers and coiffeurs, toyshops, pastrycooks, confectioners and tobacconists, in all numbering twenty units. Nos 1-4 are the most complete remaining part of the terrace, nos 10, 11, 12 and 12A having been much altered and the others retbuilt as flats in the later C20. Ramsgate Sands Station closed in 1926.

Four properties designed by the architect J T Wimperis in Old English style which are the best surviving part of Granville Marina, an ambitious scheme linking the Granville Hotel to the beach and railway terminus below.