A rough-around-the-edges seaside town that is also home to small plates restaurants and natty wine bars. It’s all enough to make London hipsters go weak at the knees, so no wonder there’s been an exodus from Hackney to Margate. And in hot pursuit of the hipsters come the celebs.
Well placed sources tell us actor Emma Corrin has just bought a house there. Corrin went to Margate Pride this summer, and was spotted sharing lunch and a kiss with boyfriend Rami Malek at Buoy and Oyster, a seafood bar in town. This week the couple seemed in high spirits at a B&Q in Kent, where they bought some indoor plants for the new gaff.
The seaside town on the Kent coast has been slowly gentrifying for the last decade. The Turner Contemporary gallery opened in Margate in 2011, while artist and Evening Standard columnist Tracey Emin moved back there in 2016.
Then noughties rock band The Libertines bought what was the worst rated B&B in Kent and transformed it into the Albion Rooms, a boutique hotel for wandering troubadours. Frontman Pete Doherty could often be spotted chowing down a full English at a Margate caff or doing surprise gigs around town. (He was then banned from his own hotel after bringing too many dodgy “characters” there.)
The phenomenon of townies decamping to the seaside has been going on for years. Cornwall’s fishing villages are now bursting with Hollywood stars’ multi million pound third homes. It may still feel bohemian, but is Margate next?
