Broadstairs: A very modern history
When does history stop? Revising a 1988 survey in 2025 has recorded considerable change, is it history? As an octogenarian who has been noting changes in my hometown of Broadstairs, I thought of recording some of the more important occurrences, to help a future historian.
As editor of the Isle of Thanet Archaeological Society magazine, my first editorial stated, “the only constant in life is change”. This observation was caused by a change in my hometown of Harrow in the 1960’s. Posted to the Far East in the RAF; on returning two and a half years later, a triangle of three roads of houses had disappeared and shiny office blocks had replaced them, What a shock!
Over the last two decades in Broadstairs, detached bungalows (built between the 1920’s and 1950’s on good sized plots) have been bought and converted into spacious detached four- or five-bedroom houses, presumably for incoming wealthy commuters, or in one case into two semi-detached houses. This trend accelerated with the outbreak of Covid 19 and people being able to work from home. I have recorded this trend pictorially as before and after images.
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[fg]jpg|Salisbury Avenue, bungalow in 2020, a large house by 2022.|Image[/fg]
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[fg]jpg|Seven Stones Drive with its iconic ‘lighthouse’ home has a typical 1960s bungalow alongside in circa 2002. By 2023 it had been demolished and replaced by a striking new black and white building.|Image[/fg]
The year 2018 marked a turning point for the town: splitting concrete lamp posts were replaced with metal ones fitted with LED bulbs; Virgin Media installed internet cables beneath the pavements; and the SEE Board renewed electrical junctions, also in the pavements.
Wishing to become my own boss in 1988 after seventeen and a half years in estate agency in Thanet, and hoping my business would be in Broadstairs, I carried out a survey of all shops and businesses in the town’s primary areas. Having retired, and noting further changes, I revised the survey in March and April 2025 with interesting results. So… is this history? It will be in the future! In fact, it already is. In August 2025, the famous Harringtons Ironmongers, a popular shop which seemed to sell everything and was already established in the town when I moved here in 1971, closed following the sad death of the long-term owner Henry Fairley. Hopefully someone will take it on.
[fg]jpg|Harringtons Ironmongers, always there in my 54 years in Broadstairs - a rare survivor.|Image[/fg]
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[fg]jpg|A good example of change is Lloyds Bank which is now a bar (note the Night Safe) and across the road the former Nat West bank is a pizza outlet. The Prince Albert, built 1911, survives.|Image[/fg]
[fg]jpg|The already narrow High Street has in 2025 been further narrowed (note incursions at the bottom of the photo) - to make it safer to cross.|Image[/fg]
You may be wondering what changes have taken place in the past 37 years. I have a detailed study, but briefly: there has been a large increase in the number of outlets serving food and alcohol, with 23 bars and pubs, an increase of 13. Food outlets such as cafes, restaurants and take-aways etc have increased in number to 64 from an original 31. No wonder Which? recently voted Broadstairs ‘the top destination for coastal food and drink in SE England’.
The full survey results are available from: gordonsgables@gmail.com upon request.
The character of new shops has shifted significantly and there appears to be a trend for hair and beauty, electrical, and vape outlets. Specifically female clothes shops and hairdressers are greatly reduced. In 1988 there were four empty shops, there are now 14, although an empty shop in the High Street is not normally empty for very long. Fresh food shops have declined due to the growth of supermarkets and shopping centres such as Westwood. Only a single baker, greengrocer and butcher remain. Charles Dickens purportedly said on leaving Broadstairs in 1859 - in effect ‘It has become too commercial’. What might he say today? Change is constant!
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Gordon Taylor is a former Chairman of the Isle of Thanet Archaeological Society, a long-serving member of the Kent Archaeological Society, and an expert on Dutch and Flemish gables in Kent.