Tucked away behind the grand Regency facades of Ramsgate’s West Cliff, the still of a street slowly comes to life. Paintbrush in one hand, dog lead in the other, an artist opens up her shop chock-full of arresting painted faces. A troupe of schoolchildren – cock-a-hoop to be out of class on a Friday – line up two by two outside a bookshop. A consignment of branded boxes lands at number 26 – the thud of new life on an old road.
This is Addington Street in Ramsgate, one of a growing number of independent quarters in coastal Kent slowly reviving its faded spaces, and standing stock-still under its Victorian street furniture and ghost signage, and with few cars to break the daydream, you could almost be forgiven for thinking you were on the set of an urban period
