Reasons for Designation
Yes list at Grade II.
Details
878/0/10085 HIGH STREET
05-NOV-10 186-188
Former 'Man of Kent' Temperance Hotel
II
Former coffee tavern, c1880 with some C20 alteration, now residential flats and a commercial unit. Architect unknown.
MATERIALS:
Yellow stock brick construction with decorative use of red brick, terracotta, coloured leaded glass, iron-work, and ceramic tiles. Slate-covered roof. Windows throughout the front elevation are one-over-one timber sliding sash windows, except at attic level where they are four-over-one sliding sashes.
PLAN:
Five storeys plus two attic storeys. Rectangular footprint with a six-storey out-shut to the west (rear) and pyramidal roof. Massive chimney stack to the north with fifteen pots.
EXTERIOR:
A substantial Free-style building, it is nearly double the height of the neighbouring buildings. The roof meets parapets to the north and south, and to the front is canted, taking a mansard-like form. The main attic storey is lit by roof-dormers and a central two-storey Dutch-gabled dormer, which rises from the wall-head cornice. The words TEMPERANCE HOTEL have been painted onto the south flank elevation; however, these are now barely legible.
To the principal (east) elevation, the treatment of each storey is different, but they are generally expressed with decorative cut red brick and terracotta cornices. The second and third floors are treated as a giant order arcade with four recessed bays between pilasters. The third-floor windows have semi-circular heads with pronounced keystones. The spandrels between the window heads, and the aprons beneath the windows, are faced with terracotta tiles with floral motifs in bas-relief. The first floor comprises a central full-height tripartite window divided by corniced piers, which support an entablature bearing the inscription: THE MAN OF KENT. Two windows flank this central group; each having a curved cast-iron balconette before them.
To the ground floor there is a door to left and right-hand side, and a central shop window. Both doorways are elaborately decorated; they have semicircular heads which spring from flanking pilasters with foliate capitals, and the spandrels are filled with colourful and richly decorative ceramic tiles, depicting a Japanese lady to one side, and a Chinese man to the other. The tiles over the left-hand door are an almost identical mirror of those over the right-hand door. A semi-circular fanlight of coloured leaded glass fills the arched head of each doorway. Both doors comprise a pair of timber multi-panelled doors of late C20 date. The shafts of the pilasters to either side of the left-hand doorway have a panel of tiles depicting an elongated rose bush growing from a jardinière. On the right-hand doorway the pilaster shafts are covered with blackboards; it is possible that a matching set of tiles survives beneath these boards. The central shop window is divided into three lights by slender timber mullions, and a horizontal transom creates three fanlights, each one glazed in coloured leaded glass. The stall-riser is of rendered masonry.
INTERIOR: Not inspected.
HISTORY:
Built as a coffee tavern, The 'Man of Kent' first appears in a Margate directory in 1883. The following year it is listed under the slightly grander name of 'Man of Kent Temperance Hotel'. However, by 1895, the building was no longer in a temperance related use, and had many subsequent commercial, and residential, occupants.
The concept of temperance emerged in Britain in late 1820s, with the first temperance society to be founded in England being set up in Bradford in 1830. Initially the Temperance Movement just opposed the consumption of spirits, and otherwise condoned drinking in moderation; however, by the late 1830s, the movement had become more vehement in its condemnation of alcohol, and societies began only to accept total abstinence. This, in turn, led to the need for buildings in which societies could meet for social and educational gatherings and where entertainment, improving activities and refreshment could be provided in a teetotal environment. Various building types emerged as a result of this: temperance halls, temperance hotels, and coffee houses or taverns offered a variety of facilities, and often their functions over-lapped. Reading rooms, libraries, dining rooms, games rooms, a bar selling non-alcoholic drinks, and overnight accommodation, might have been found at any of these establishments. The term 'hotel' may have indicated that rooms were available for the teetotal traveller; however, it was also used to describe more upmarket coffee houses.
Coffee taverns frequently sought to take on the appearance of pubs in an attempt to seem a credible alternative to such establishments. Examples such as The 'Man of Kent' mimic the flamboyance of the late Victorian 'gin-palaces', using coloured glass, terracotta and tile-work to elaborate effect.
The tile-work at The 'Man of Kent' is believed to have been made by Maw and Co, one of the principal tile manufacturers of the late C19. The floral tiles appear in Maw and Co catalogues of the 1880s, and it is believed that the figurative tiles were designed by Owen Gibbons, a ceramic designer who assisted on the interior schemes for the Victoria and Albert Museum, Kensington, London, before becoming Headmaster of Coalbrookdale School of Art, Shropshire. He also worked as a freelance designer for Maw and Co, and was responsible for designing a number of small tile panels which featured Japanese ladies in traditional dress. These are illustrated in Maw and Co catalogues of the 1880s.
Coffee taverns sold a wide variety of non-alcoholic beverages, and tea would have been a popular option. China and Japan were culturally and economically associated with tea and were also considered places of great exoticism; Japanese art was having a particular influence on English and French art of this period. The Japanese lady who features in the tiles is making and drinking tea; over the left-hand door she holds a small jug on a tray, and over the right-hand door she holds a teacup and saucer. The Chinese man, who is an exact mirror image over the two doors, is perhaps a vendor, as he carries tea chests on a bamboo yoke. The subject matter of these tiles provides rich and visually exciting decoration, as well as artistically superior advertising. The way in which the imagery is cropped is reminiscent of traditional Japanese prints. Whether or not these panels were unique to this building, they are extremely unusual in their combination of size, subject matter, quality of design and level of survival. The rose and jardinière tiles on the pilasters around the left-hand door, are a standard design which appeared in the Maw and Co catalogue of the 1880s, nevertheless, they are the only know extant example of this particular design, and survive with a good level of preservation.
SOURCES:
J and B Austwick, The Decorated Tile, (1980)
G Brandwood, D Davison and M Slaughter, Licensed to Sell (2004)
G Brandwood (ed), Living, Leisure and Law: Eight Building Types in England 1800-1914 (forthcoming)
M Girouard, Victorian Pubs, (1984)
K Huggins, Owen Gibbons - London to Ironbridge, Glazed Expressions, Tiles and Architectural Ceramics Society, No.9, (Spring 1985)
Grant's Directory of Margate 1883-1884
Kelly's Directory of 1897-1898
The Isle of Thanet Directory and Guide 1885
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION:
The former 'Man of Kent' Temperance Hotel, 186-188 High Street, Margate, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Historic interest: as a purpose-built a coffee tavern, it is part of a limited architectural legacy left by the Temperance Movement, a significant cultural force in the mid-to-late C19.
* Architectural interest: the grand scale of the building, the profusion of terracotta decoration, coloured glass, and decorative tile-work, create an eye-catching building of considerable architectural ambition, which would have sought to compete with the elaborate 'gin-palaces' of the later C19.
* Materials: The tile-work, notably the colourful, figurative tile-work, attributed to Owen Gibbons, is of particular interest for its high artistic quality and unusual subject matter.
