Dreamland Margate

Dreamland Margate is an amusement park by the Kent coast, built on land once covered by the sea. The site began as pleasure gardens in the 1870s, with a ruined abbey, lake and menagerie created by circus owner George Sanger. The first rides appeared in 1880, when ‘Sea on Land’ machines pitched passengers as though afloat. Sanger’s Hall by the Sea became Dreamland in 1920, when John Henry Iles opened the Grade II* listed Scenic Railway rollercoaster. Half a million people rode it in its first year, and the park grew with cinemas, ballrooms and further attractions. The park reflects Margate’s golden age as a holiday resort before cheap foreign travel arrived. Iles invested over half a million pounds between 1920 and 1935, adding rides and the Dreamland cinema complex. In the 1980s the Dutch Bembom Brothers brought high-tech coasters like the Looping Star, making Dreamland one of Britain’s top ten attractions. Later owners struggled, and by the early 2000s the site fell into disrepair after closure and arson attacks. Today’s Dreamland mixes restored vintage rides with modern attractions along the seafront. The Scenic Railway still climbs its wooden structure above the park, while new additions include the Orbiter and Big Wheel. The pleasure gardens’ Gothic walls and animal cages survive, and the Dreamland Cinema shows films in a 1930s art-deco auditorium. Visitors walk past the listed structures and ride the slopes where Sanger once trained circus animals.