Walpole Bay Hotel
Fifth Avenue, Cliftonville, Margate, Kent
About
The Walpole is not a boutique hotel that has been styled to look old. It is an Edwardian seafront hotel in Cliftonville that has simply never stopped, run by the same family, and it has accumulated rather than been curated. There is a working Otis trellis-gate lift from 1927, a 1905 Marshall and Rose grand piano that visiting musicians play, and a museum spread through the building's corridors and rooms which the family run as an ongoing project, including the Napery, a collection of tablecloths signed by guests over decades. It is a genuinely strange and completely sincere place, and it divides people: if you want contemporary hotel design you will hate it, and if you want somewhere with a hundred years of accumulated character you will not want to leave. It sits directly above Walpole Bay, so the tidal pool is at the bottom of the cliff, and it is a little over a mile east of the harbour along the promenade.
Photos
Amenities
Accessibility
The hotel has a lift, but it is a 1927 Otis trellis-gate lift rather than a modern one, and the building is Edwardian. Contact the hotel directly about access.
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