Kingsgate Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Rising at the edge of the chalk cliffs above Kingsgate Bay, at the north-eastern tip of the Isle of Thanet, Kingsgate Castle has the look of a medieval fortress but in fact belongs to the picturesque taste of the 18th century. Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland, had it built around 1760 to house the stables and coach house of his nearby villa, in the form of a scaled-down flint and chalk version of a Welsh castle of Edward I. The building, which soon fell into disrepair, was converted into a residence and then largely rebuilt in the late 19th century by John Lubbock, Lord Avebury. The present ensemble forms a battlemented quadrangle of two to three storeys, faced with flint and dominated by a large round tower, the only notable survivor of the original construction. Having become a hotel between the wars, then divided into flats in 1954, it is listed Grade II and remains a striking landmark on the Broadstairs coastline.