New limecrete floor, rough lime rendered wall and black gloss paint removed from the c17th oak beams creates a healthy, dry and 'breathing' environment following removal of the 1970s waterproof tanking which had rotten the floor joists below.

Rotten lathes were removed from the historic spine wall, and left open to allow the southern sunlight to penetrate through to the darker sitting room

Structural glazed extension with oak door frame.

Corian worktop & sink, limewashed walls, exposed steel

Unpainted lime plastered walls ad limecrete floor

The front door opens directly into the sitting room, so we turned the house around and created a new, large cloaks lobby at the back of the house, which can be entered from the Old Town through the garden. New joinery conceals all the electrical services and meters.

Stripped walls stripped floorboards and painted dado panelling

1690 HOUSE

Old Town, Margate

2015

A small Grade II Listed Cottage in the centre of the Margate, delicately altered and repaired for the next century of use, initially as a holiday home.

The process of conservation slowly revealed its historical layers and stages of development, the first of which was a garden wall for a handsome late 17th century Dutch-style gabled house next door. This chalk block and clay brick wall still forms part of the ground floor structure, over which was built a humble, two–storey, timber framed house. This was later enhanced with a brick gable wall, and later still - around the late 19th century - significantly rebuilt internally, slightly taller to form a habitable attic.

Over the last hundred years the house suffered some inappropriate changes, including damaging waterproofing to the ground floor, perhaps installed after the Margate flood of 1953. Instead of protecting the house from water ingress, it had rotted much of the timber structure on the outside of the waterproofing layer as it wasn't able to 'breathe' naturally. In the 1970s the house underwent a ‘Tudorisation’ whereby a layer of historical make-believe was laid over the house, with black-and-white false fretwork glued to modern plasterboard dry-lining, lath and plaster ceilings removed, exposed19th century beams chamfered to appear older, and fake bulls-eye glass installed in the front windows.

We fully conserved the house in line with SPAB (Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings) Conservation Guidelines, protecting and repairing all layers of history where possible, and adding new layers only where necessary.

The Margate Civic Society nominated this project for

submission to the national Civic Voice Design Awards 2016.

Contractor: G & W Gardner

Engineer: Tim Baker Associates

Photographs by Jo Bridges

See more photographs and an interview with the clients on

The Curio Margate website Gary & Margit…………. | (wordpress.com)

The house is available for let here: