Wayne Hemingway and his wife Gerardine first found success with their fashion label Red or Dead


Iles immediately installed the mile-long wooden rollercoaster – the Scenic Railway – and Dreamland’s popularity was instant. “It was one of the UK’s most loved amusement parks and in its heyday it was welcoming an impressive 2.5 million visitors a year,” says Kemsley, who’s leading today’s Dreamland revival. In 1935, an Art Deco cinema further


transformed the town. The 2,200-seater Dreamland cinema and its unmistakable fin-style design heralded a golden era of Modernist cinema architecture in the UK. “It was one of the first examples of a real leisure complex, with its cinema, restaurants and bingo hall alongside the amusement park,” she says. Dreamland was visited by the pioneers


of youth culture, from the Teddy Boys and Girls of the 1950s to the punk rockers of the 1970s. But the 1970s also brought air travel to the British and Margate began to lose its popularity as a tourist destination as people started going abroad. “The


AM 1 2015 ©Cybertrek 2015


“Dreamland was the heartbeat of Margate and its main economic driver for a century”


decline of Margate happened over a period of about 40 years, and Margate’s decline was Dreamland’s decline,” Kemsley says. During the 1980s, under the ownership


of the Bembom Brothers, investments were made in the park and it was marketed as a family-friendly attraction. It was sold to Jimmy Godden in the mid- 1990s – its demise was not reversed. By 2005, the site was often closed and rumours that Dreamland would be redeveloped were constant. Although the site became derelict, its closure provoked a huge reaction from the public. “Dreamland was the heartbeat of


Margate and its main economic driver for a century, so after the closure a protest group was formed by locals,” says Kemsley.


People go-karting at Dreamland (far left) and riding the Tumblebug in the late 1950s


Thanet District Council gave its support


to the group – the Save Dreamland campaign – and years of lengthy legal battles ensued as the site was wrangled from Godden. The council won control in 2013, using a compulsory purchase order. “The Save Dreamland campaign worked


incredibly hard for 10 years to save the site, and their work is what got us where we are today – on the final stretch before Dreamland reopens to the public,” she says.


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