Dutch Courage
Holywood and Cultra, County Down. Brighton and Hove, East Sussex. Margate and Westgate, Kent. Deal and Walmer, Kent. Some coastal towns don’t need a committee to be twinned. Each resort itself is dual aspect with a centre and a front. “You can do things at the seaside that you can’t do in town,” went the old music hall saying. Architecture by the sea can also exhibit a frivolity not found so much inland. The 1927 terrace facing leafy Archery Square, a block back from Walmer seafront, is a case in point. These six two storey with attic houses overlook the rather smart Walmer Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. Their white painted brick walls and louvred window shutters appear suitably nautical but it is the roof that turns to pure whimsy. The dormer of each house and the side elevation of the terrace are framed by extravagant Dutch gables. Provençale style red pantiles add a splash of colour to the roof. The architects, Messrs Kieffer and Fleming, are relatively unknown. One other project they did work on is Barrington Hall in Cambridge. They remodelled that house which also has white painted brick walls and Georgian sash windows, but is American Colonial in essence with a columned verandah overlooking the lawn.
We know Kent. Margate is rough and classy round the edges. Folkestone is classy and rough round the edges. Walmer is classy. Deal’s Siamese twinned town (really they should share a hyphen) attracts artists and architects some of whom still commute to London albeit for the new normalcy of two days a week. On a sunny Saturday evening mid venue hopping Walmer is the Christie Turlington of the east coast (photogenic), from semis to the cemetery. Next stop The Lighthouse Pub which sits on the invisible hyphen. But does it attract a rough Saturday night crowd?
