The Walpole Bay Hotel is one of those rather unique British hotels which refuse to conform as shown by having a museum of itself.
Many old hotels have been “sympathetically restored”, but they still lack the very essence and history which the owners are trying to restore.
Luckily, the previous owners of the Walpole Bay Hotel in Cliftonville, Kent, decided for whatever reason to with with the Edwardian fabric of the hotel which gives the current owners something very rare – an authentic Edwardian hotel.
The hotel is in-fact so authentic, that as well as offering guests the ability to step back to a more gentile time, they can also trace the very history of the building through the hotel’s very own museum of the Walpole Hotel.
The museum features photographs from the early visitors back in 1915 when the hotel opened, along with a couple of original and still working gas lamps and possibly the piese-de-resistance – the original 1915 trellis gated Otis lift as you might see in films up to the 1950s. Incredibly, the lift has apparently worked without failure since its installation and guests can still take a trip up the three floors.
The hotel isn’t completely set in the past and received very good reviews recently in the Guardian.
More details at the The Walpole hotel and museum web site.
More Cliftonville and Margate links:
Margate hotels (near Cliftonville)
Visitor attractions in Cliftonville
Visitor attractions in Margate
One Comment
Good reviews by the Guardian makes this a must see for me the next time with my family. My wife has a thing for Edwardian Hotels.