Newgate Gap in Margate where you can see, if you click on the image, everyone fully clothed and when sitting down they are on "proper" chairs. I'm not sure how they managed to keep those chairs upright. The card was sent in 1923 but I suspect it is an older image because the instructions for writing a message state "For inland postage this space, as well as the back, may now be used for communication." That would date it to before 1909 or thereabouts.
Margate Beach, the Sands, pictured on a card dated 1917. Now you will see many people sitting on the sand itself and the chairs are deckchairs. People are still dressed in voluminous clothes and wearing hats.
Finally, Broadstairs Beach dated 1935. Now we have people swimming and paddling and even one or two seem to be sunbathing. I can't see too many hats or long and full skirts.
On a sunny day, both Margate and Broadstairs beaches can still be packed with people, at first glance not so very different from all those years ago.
A post for Sepia Saturday. A click on the button will take you to the Sepia Saturday blog where you can find links to all the other people taking part.
Very historic postcards...interesting, too.
ReplyDeletethis is really lovely and nostalgic :)
ReplyDeleteSuper cards, Sheila. I don't know either place.
ReplyDeleteI wascin Margate last February when it was really bitterly cold and we had lots of clothing on too! Fine postcards.
ReplyDeleteLovely cards. When you look at these old photos of seaside resorts you wonder how so many people could have been packed onto the beaches. Perhaps it was something to do with the focal length of the lenses they were using in the early cameras. But it was more likely to be the lack of cheap flights to Spain and the sun!
ReplyDeleteI think it is interesting that they are labeled "bathing station" and "sands," not "beach."
ReplyDeleteThese are great! All those clothes and all those people ...
ReplyDeleteKathy M.
That first one in particularly interesting to me and I've had to go back and take a couple of extra looks at it.
ReplyDeleteI've never had much success at keeping chairs upright on the beach either. An interesting pair of early colourised photos. I note there are always far more people crowding the sand than in the water.
ReplyDeleteBeach history in a nutshell. A very nice collection showing that the future of mankind seems to be in the sea :)
ReplyDeletethat's amazing, to see beaches that have changed very little yet in the detail are aging
ReplyDeleteWhat beautiful postcards! Nice display.
ReplyDeleteI've wondered about these early beach scenes too. I suspect that many people just did not know how to swim. And also they probably didn't think that the recreational clothing, i.e. swimming suit, was something to wear in public, much less carry with you on the omnibus.
ReplyDeleteSo deckchairs made life at the beach a lot easier. I had no idea the Egyptians used them. From Yahoo answers:
ReplyDelete'Deckchairs can be traced as far back as the ancient Egyptians, but it was John Thomas Moore in 1886 who patented the ‘adjustable folding chair’. He manufactured them in Macclesfield and was responsible for many of the chairs supplied to the famous passenger liners like TheTitanic. From the 1880s they become common place on ships and at the seaside'.