Well done Sarah! Shell Grotto on telly!

[EAS]

Great to see such a wonderful piece (and Sarah) on Shell Grotto on Portillo's Railway Journeys BBC2 just now! x

Also Sea Bathing Hospital & beautiful railway ststion

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... o_Margate/

[Vince, Charlie and Sam]

I watch very little TV but this whole series has been very interesting and even more so now Michael Portillo is visiting our corner of the country.











It's available on the iplayer and well worth a watch, but I believe it is only available for one week.

[EAS]

Yes. Another friend is on tomorrow talking about fern trains.

Still no idea if the previous & this series will be released on DVD. I do hope so!

[Vince, Charlie and Sam]

It's been a fascinating series, for anyone who hasn't seen it Michael Portillo, an MP in Mrs Thatcher's government, has been travelling around the UK using a guidebook published in the earliest days of the railway, written by a man named George Bradshaw.

The programme focusses entirely on sights available to early Victorian travellers which can still be seen now but which were affected in some way by the coming of the railway.

Yesterday's programme visited Canterbury, Whitstable and Margate, and is well worth a watch, the link has been posted before but is worth posting again for anyone who missed it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... o_Margate/

[Jim Douglas Jr.]

Nice! What an attractive entryway, too.
This place LOOKS like a class-act attraction.

[Vince, Charlie and Sam]

Nice! What an attractive entryway, too.
This place LOOKS like a class-act attraction.

Presuming you mean Sarah's Shell Grotto, the essential difference is that it is privately owned.

Margate Caves should be privately owned. My hope is that Thanet District Council can be persuaded to sell it as a cave so that the remedial work can be carried out by the new owner at a realistic cost so that the Caves can be re-opened to the public.

[Sarah]

Thank you JDJ! We'd just spent more money than we could really spare on new signs, and Colin had clambered all over the building giving it a fresh coat of white..it needs it every year...because when the BBC comes around you make sure you're looking your best.

Grotto website hits for the evening of the programme - 28,000!

Sarah

[Busheyfields]

.

Grotto website hits for the evening of the programme - 28,000!

Sarah

I suspect that single handedly with that piece you will have tempted many more people to visit Margate this year. Very well done.

[Lou]

Well done Sarah - you deserve so much, i hope that the Shell Grotto does well this year.......xxx

[Jim Douglas Jr.]

If I start swimming now, I can be there by 2013.

[Nick Evans]

Have just caught up with this and the following night's programme on video _ yes, good old VHS! - well done to Sarah for such great publicity. Methinks Sarah had had her done specially too - very classy, may I say. Michael Portillo has done a good job with this series and it made a long overdue change to see Margate - as well as Whitstable - being shown in a positive light and not one where it was being knocked backwards.