Young Man With his Parents in Ramsgate Prior to 1918

            The Postcard

A postally unused postcard that was published prior to June 1918 by M. Short, Photographer, of 13, High Street, and Royal Pavilion Ramsgate. The card has a divided back.

There are no indications as to the identity of the family or the exact date of the photograph.

Ramsgate

Ramsgate is a coastal town in East Kent. It was one of the great seaside towns of the 19th. century, and is a member of the ancient confederation of Cinque Ports.  Ramsgate's main attraction is its coastline, and its main industries are tourism and fishing, although the fishing is in decline.

Many of the town's buildings are Regency or Victorian.

Ramsgate's harbour (partly visible in the picture) is an important feature of the town.  Construction began in 1749 and was completed in about 1850. It is the only Royal Harbour in the UK.

Because of being near to mainland Europe, Ramsgate was a major embarkation point both for the Napoleonic Wars and for the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940. 

The Ramsgate Marina Bathing Pool

The Marina Bathing Pool was funded by the brewers Tomson and Wotton.  It was opened by Mrs T Wotton and Mr Martin Tomson in 1935.

The complex comprised a boating pool at the lower end of the pool (in the foreground in the photograph). The other end had a recreational dancing/roller skating rink. There was also car parking under the cafe.

Floodlit bathing played a major part in relaxation swimming. Ramsgate Marina Bathing Pool during holiday weekends,  had easily 5,000 passing through the turnstiles.   

Water Polo matches were frequent.  There were many spectacular displays of swimming and diving.  In fact the famous US diver Pete Desjardins was flown over specially  to give a display.

The Closure of the Pool

Sadly, like many other outdoor swimming pools around the British coastline, it is no more. There are a number of stories about the closure of the pool.  

It was partly a victim of changing holiday tastes, with package holidays offering guaranteed sun; the water in the Marina Pool was always cold and the weather unpredictable.

Some say it was a council blunder that damaged Ramsgate Marina Bathing Pool so badly it could never be used again.

The story goes that some bright council officer decided to take the running of it from the borough engineers and give it to the council's leisure department.

The sceptical engineers handed it to the leisure department with a set of instructions about running and maintaining it, one of which was never to empty it without supporting the seaward facing side.

This was because it was designed so the weight of the water inside counteracted the forces of the sea battering against it.
The first thing the leisure department did when they took it over was to empty it unsupported.

In the resulting cover up, councillors were told that the cracking was caused bomb damage during WW2 that had weakened the structure.

Some say the problem was the old design of the building, and that the pool was actually on 'stilts', and you could walk underneath it at low tide. As the tide came in the void was filled with seawater. 

The dated building measures made this a fatal design fault. Gradually the chalk below began to erode, and as a result the foundations moved, causing the pool to crack. This was patched for years until repairs were impossible. It was also too expensive to replace.

Some say that the chalk at sea edge was excavated deliberately, and that the council failed to stop this.

With bather numbers dwindling the pool was eventually abandoned and left to decay.   It became an eyesore, and local businessman Mr John Bates filled in the site.   

He applied white paint to the surrounds in an attempt to smarten up what was left of the pool.   However eventually it was totally demolished.

Taken on: September 27, 2022

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Sets appears in: • Vintage Studio and Other Photographic Portraits

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