Great food, galleries and ‘almost everywhere is dog-friendly’ - could Irish seaside towns learn from Margate?

One of the UK’s original bucket-and-spade resorts has become cooler than anyone thought possible. Our writer checked out its art and culinary delights

A view of Margate Bay

Katy McGuinness

It was the Georgians who transformed Margate from a small fishing village to a high-end seaside resort, attracting the fashionably exhausted set from London with the promise of restorative sea bathing.

Later, Oscar Wilde called it ‘a nice spot not vulgarised by crowds of literary people’.