WWLB020
Location: Margate Stone Pier
Walk: 0.33m (0.6km). Short.
Keepers: Karen Eslea, Helen Maddocks, Lucy Kirke
Status: Installed
Note: This poem records Tracey Emin’s memory of her teenage suicide
attempt, a drunken leap from the pier. The letterbox is temporarily
located in Droit House, the old dues house. It will be moved to a new
location when Turner Contemporary opens. Details will be published on
this website. The opening hours for Droit House are listed at www.turnercontemporary.org
Guide:
From the bus stop outside the library in Cecil Square – formerly
the site of the Grand Theatre and Hippodrome, before that, the Royal
Hotel and Assembly Rooms, cross two small but busy roads and head down
the hill along Hawley Street opposite the post office.
Take the first left, past the steam-filled Mark Michael’s Dry
Cleaning store and stop when you reach the Baptist church, a grand,
imposing building which, located anywhere other than Margate, would
seem out of place in a street of otherwise modest terraced houses.
Turn right down New Cross Street, with a further assortment of buildings,
from stunning red brick facades to piles of rubble, a sign of the constant
development in this part of town.
Turn left at the bottom of this road and pass the brilliantly vibrant
windows of the new Turnstone Gallery (on your left); take a deep breath
as the smell of bacon wafts across from the new open-air café
in the Market Place (on the right). Pass Cuttings, the jewellers, which
everybody knows, and The Bull’s Head, where Eric Morecambe held
his wedding reception when he married Miss Margate 1958. Cross over
to the seafront paved area, which turns into a delightful plaza in the
summer months.
Now the sea and Droit House – once the Harbour Master’s
Office – come into view. Cross over the road and head towards
the pier. The first letterbox is located inside Droit House.