Dreamland Margate

Dreamland Margate is an amusement park located in Margate, Kent, England. It is currently owned by Margate Town Centre Regeneration Company (MTCRC) and is closed to the public. MTCRC along with The Dreamland Trust are currently redeveloping the site as the world's first amusement park of historic rides; the centrepiece of which is the Scenic Railway; the oldest roller coaster in the UK and a Grade II Listed Structure.

History

The Dreamland site was a salt marsh known as the Mere that was inundated at high tide until 1809 when a causeway and seawall were built. In 1846 a railway terminus was built on the present Arlington site for the South Eastern Railway, followed in 1864 by a further terminus, for the rival London, Chatham and Dover Railway on the site of what is now Dreamland Cinema. The LCDR subsequently failed to secureParliamentary approval for its Private Bill, so the station, already built in the expectation of receiving Assent to the Bill, remained unused and unconnected to the railway network. Dreamland’s origin dates from 1863 when the railway catering contractors Spiers and Pond opened a restaurantand dance hall in the unused railway terminus on the Mere causeway. Not being very successful the ‘Hall by the Sea’ was bought by the Reeve family of Margate in 1870 for £3,750 who gradually also acquired the low lying land at the rear of the Hall.

In 1870 circus entrepreneur George Sanger went into partnership in the Hall by the Sea with...
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