15 amazing photos of Summer in Thanet – and 11 isle facts you may not know

Soaking up the sun at Stone Bay huts Photo Mel Chennell

Summer is well and truly here as these 15 great pictures taken by isle photographers show.

Whether it’s daytime fun on the beach or stunning sunrises and sunsets, there’s nowhere quite like Thanet.

Stone Bay huts Photo Dean Spinks

What a perfect way to enjoy the isle’s bays, settling in and enjoying a cuppa or picnic from your own beach hut.

Breakfast at Stone Bay Photo William Walker Collins

In 2016 a quirky Thanet beach hut was named one of the best in the UK.

No 31 in West Bay  achieved highly commended  in Towergate’s Beach Hut of the year 2016 competition. The panel of judges included Phil Spencer, co-presenter of ‘Location, Location, Location.’

Botany Bay Photo John Horton

Botany Bay scooped a place in a list of the UK’s top hidden beaches.

Time Out London published its guide to “a day by the sea without the crowds and the tackiness.”

In its top 13 hidden beaches Time Out picked Botany Bay, saying: “Older visitors will be humming ‘There’ll be bluebirds over, the white cliffs of Dover’ as they take in the chalk cliffs backing this lovely bay, but younger ones will be goggling at (and probably trying to scale) the towering stacks that characterise Botany Bay, and hunting for fossils at low tide.”

Walpole Bay Photo by Carole Adams

Walpole Bay Tidal Pool was built in June 1937, meaning it is 80 years old this month.

To celebrate the pool turning 80 the Walpole Bay Swimmers hope to run a series of events through the Summer Swim Season.

The Grade II listed tidal pool  is four acres (16187 sqm) in extent and contains seven million gallons of seawater. It is larger than the two largest listed seawater lidos, Penzance and Lymington.

Walpole Bay Photo David Townsend

It is 137m long. It is 2.13m deep at the seaward end. It is 92m wide at the seaward end and 167m at the landward end. The pool is accessible from beach end as this end is not contained by a wall. Swimming a width of the pool from the center steps is roughly equivalent to swimming 6 lengths of a 25m pool!

At high tide the pool is completely covered by the sea. The pool is drained every six months for a maintenance check up.

Broadstairs beach Photo Andy Hillier

Viking Bay was the  choice holiday destination of author Charles Dickens, he even wrote an affectionate piece on the town, Our English Watering Place.

Viking Bay Photo Carole Adams

Celebrating those links is the Broadstairs Dickens Festival. The event is in its 80th year and is taking place now (June 18). Find a programme of events here

Stone Pier Photo Lucy Goode

Margate’s Stone Pier was one of the locations for a Vogue fashion shoot this month.

Margate Photo Mel Chennell

The sea defence steps on Margate seafront were officially opened in 2013.  They are about 200 metres long and have a series of wide steps which start at pavement level and stretch seaward until they disappear into the sand.

This type of structure is called a ‘stepped revetment’ and it works by helping to absorb wave energy during storms so that the waves do not spill over onto the pavement and road and cause flooding.

Margate sunset Photo Jamie Horton

The town’s sunsets were famously captured by artist JMW Turner. He loved Margate for the sea, the skies, and his landlady Mrs Booth – immortalised in the shell lady sculpture at the harbour.

Fishing on Margate beach Photo Paul Trindall

He first came to the seaside town aged 11, having been sent by his parents to school in Love Lane in Margate Old Town. He returned to sketch here aged 21 and from the 1820s onwards became a regular visitor.

The Turner Contemporary art gallery, named in his honour, celebrated its sixth birthday this year.

Minnis Bay Photo Dean Spinks

Many prehistoric finds including Palaeolithic and Neolithic worked flint have been found off Minnis Bay foreshore, the tools used by the people who once lived on the land that has been lost to the sea.  The remains of a Bronze Age settlement was discovered on the wave cut platform around the mouth of the creek in 1938.

Ramsgate Photo David Townsend

‘PERFUGIUM MISERIS’ is an overlooked part of Ramsgate’s history, writes David Townsend. It is the Latin motto carved into the beautiful Georgian lighthouse, at the end of the western harbour arm and translates as ‘refuge for those in need’.

Many people in Ramsgate may have never noticed this motto before and the artwork will be a surprising and thought provoking sight, encouraging deeper reflection on the nature of a harbour, beacon and refuge from life’s storms.

Many of those lives were lost in the Great Storm of 1703 which, through tragedy, brought about significant change to Ramsgate. Widely believed to be the only true hurricane to hit British shores at full force, the storm caused the deaths of roughly 1500 sailors from the Royal Navy on the Goodwin Sands alone, that is without the countless lives lost in other vessels out at sea, as the storm raged across the country.

The need for a more effective refuge in the area resulted in a new harbour design for Ramsgate, the reconstruction of the harbour commenced from 1749 and took a century to complete with the lighthouse marking the harbour mouth.