Folkestone Foghorn Summer Issue 2022

FOLKESTONE FOGHORN

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FREE

Summer 2022 • Modern-day Seaside Stories

SKATE PALACE The story behind F51, the world’s first multi-storey skate park

HARBOUR ARM

MAD FOR MOMOS

HYTHE HOPS

The evolution of the seaside promenade

Discover the delish local Nepali food scene

Meet the community’s hop growers

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folkestone foghorn

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Editorial

Editor Simon Richmond

Acting editor-in-chief

Welcome to our debut issue

John Murphy

Founder & Publisher Clare Freeman

Co-founder & Advertising director Jen Brammer

Design director Lizzy Tweedale

Publishing assistant

olkestone has got its Foghorn back – but not as you may remember it! Rather than being an updated mechanical honker blasting warnings across the Channel, Foghorn 2.0 is our new, hyper-local print magazine of modern seaside stories and shout-outs about the many great things going on in our creative coastal community.

One of the most notable events of recent months was the opening of multistorey skate park F51 – a world first for Folkestone and our cover story (page 10). We also shine a light on the home of the original foghorn: the Harbour Arm. Sharon McCarron’s poem celebrates the mournful old klaxon (page 38) while Olivia Franklin’s feature (page

14) covers the Arm’s evolution from a redundant concrete pier into a food, drink and entertainment catalyst and one of Kent’s top tourist attractions.

No wonder our new regular columnist, Cathy White (page 9), believes home is best when it comes to holidays!

Did you know that Folkestone is the world’s first “music town”? Lucy Atkins gets the low-down on what that means (page 25) and curates the top gigs for the coming months (page 27). We also tune into a conversation between two talented artists (page 34), introduce the community hop growers (page 22) as well as Folkestone’s sizzling Nepali food scene (page 19), and reveal the story behind a new local memorial to the “sailors” friend’ Samuel Plimsoll (page 29).

Taking this magazine from bright spark to reality in under four months has been very much a team effort.

I gratefully stand on the shoulders of Brightside Publishing’s founders, Clare, Jen and Lizzy, who by nurturing our sister magazines provided the organisation, business know-how and contemporary design that is our foundation. It’s also been a pleasure to work with a talented group of local writers and image makers in crafting the features in the following pages.

I love living in Folkestone and I hope that the choice of what we cover here and in future issues communicates that. Let me know how you think we’re doing and if you have a Folkestone story you’d like to share.

Issue one

regulator

From the Editor Simon Richmond

Esther Ellard

Contributors

Writers Lucy Atkins Josie Carter Rachel Doyle Angela Conyers Olivia Franklin Sophie Hoffman Sharon McCarron Simon Richmond Kerry Ryan Cathy White Zeren Wilson

Photographers Charlotte Bland Hufton+Crow Paul Cochrane Simon Richmond Matt Rowe Simon Warren

Illustrators Steve Boyd Hannah Davis

cover image Matt Rowe @gogowhippet

Printers Mortons Print Ltd, Morton Way, Boston Road Industrial Estate, Horncastle, LN9 6JR ♻ We print on recycled paper

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Contents 5

The Scoop

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Summer Hotlist

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New in Town

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White Space – the problem with holidays

10 F51 – the inside scoop on how Folkestone became home to the world’s first multi-storey skatepark

14 Harbour renaissance – Olivia Franklin checks out new tenants and chats to the pioneers down at the Harbour Arm

19 Mad for momos – decoding Folkestone’s delicious Nepali food scene with Zeren Wilson

22 Hythe Hops – meet members of the community

farm as this year’s harvest and the green hop beer festival approaches

25 World’s first music town – Lucy Atkins shines a light on efforts by local musicians and their supporters to make Folkestone a UK musical powerhouse

27 Gig guide – don’t miss the season’s top music events 29 Samuel Plimsoll mural – Angela Conyers on the campaign to create a memorial in town to the “sailor’s friend”

30 SALT of the earth – what’s happening at this

September’s festival of the sea, landscape and environment

32 Sophie Rowell – Kerry Ryan profiles a local interior designer whose work has gone international

34 Conversations between creatives – Kate Knight and Robert Buchanan chat about their artistic careers and the joy of drawing with biro

36 The Shows to See – what’s on at local galleries Summer Wishlist – Rachel Doyle’s seasonal

shopping picks

38 Fog – a poem about the original Harbour Arm foghorn by Sharon McCarron

sister publications

Summer 2022 – July to October B

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Contact

Website brightsidepublishing. com

Social Media @folkestonefoghorn

Advertising and distribution enquiries info@brightside publishing.com

Published by Brightside Publishing Ltd © All rights reserved Copyright 2022

We are regulated by IMPRESS. If you wish to make a complaint about anything that appears in the Folkestone Foghorn, please visit the website brightsidepublishing.com/contact

Margate Mercury

Ramsgate Recorder

Broadstairs Beacon

Whitstable Whistler

Deal Despatch

Folkestone Foghorn

LIVE SCREENINGS, THEATRE AND COMEDY AT QUARTERHOUSE

NT Live: Much Ado About Nothing Thu 8 Sep, 7pm £14 / £12 Concession Katherine Parkinson and John Heffernan lead the cast in Shakespeare’s romcom of sun, sea and mistaken identity.

Omid Djalili: The Good Times Tour Fri 30 Sep, 8pm £25

Selling Fast

Intelligent, always provocative, entertaining, Omid’s legendary standup performance is a captivating comedy masterclass.

Chris McCausland: Speaky Blinder Thu 8 Sep, 7pm £15 / £13 Concession

Kiri PritchardMcLean: Home Truths Thu 8 Sep, 7pm £15 / £13 Concession Kiri Pritchard-McLean (Have I Got News For You?, Live at the Apollo, Would I Lie to You?) is back with a brand new tour.

A & E Comedy: Witch Hunt

Star of the Royal Variety Performance, Would I Lie to You?, Have I Got News for You, QI, and Live at the Apollo... One of the UK’s top stand-ups Chris McCausland is on tour with a stand-up show about life, family, and loads of other nonsense as well!

Wed 26 Oct, 7.30pm £12 / £10 Concession A ritualistic voodoo brouhaha designed to enchant and hex the pricks and predators; imagine Vic and Bob doing ‘The Crucible’. “Can we use witchcraft to take down the Patriarchy?” Yes we can!

Book all Creative Folkestone Quarterhouse events through our website below or call Box Office 01303 760 740 Become a Creative Folkestone Member for exclusive discounts on Quarterhouse events and much more!

CREATIVEFOLKESTONE.ORG.UK

folkestone foghorn

Pride & Beyond Folkestone Pride has become a staple of the town’s summer festivities. “Following 2021’s successful picnic on the Leas, for 2022 we are scaling up!” says CP Hunter, co-director of Folkestone Pride with Alex Swain.

The big day is Saturday 23 July, starting at 11am at the Quarterhouse with a fun family-friendly cabaret show from Home Art Live. At 2pm the action moves to the Leas, where the Pride Picnic will be co-hosted by Folkestone Festivals until 5pm with food trucks and drinks vans on hand if you haven’t packed your own spread. “There will be some incredible performers on the bandstand, such as drag burlesque showgirl and icon Dita Garbo, as well as drag story time. And local charities and community arts organisations will also be there,” continues Hunter. From 8pm at the Quarterhouse the saucy cabaret Salty will showcase some of the UK’s best LGBTQIA+ performers and the night will be capped off with DJs for the official Pride After Party.

Pride is much more than a one-day festival, though.

“Many queer events are about nightlife and drinking which is great, but not appealing for everyone,” says Swain. “We’ve also been organising daytime event that are centred around meeting up and building friendships and community in Folkestone.” Details of these activities, such as Active Pride climbing sessions, the Trans Folke meet ups at DIY 4 Folke, and Drag Bingo at Folklore, are on the Pride website.

“We’re also working with Screen Archive South East (SASE) on a project to discover and preserve the region’s queer history on film,” adds Hunter.

THE SCOOP

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Origins Untold Events

Prospect Cottage

Local arts organisation Origins Untold (OU) is getting ready this autumn to celebrate the African diaspora in visual culture, the landscape and across intersections.

The Origins Untold Festival, celebrating the African and Caribbean communities of Folkestone and Hythe, will take place in October, to coincide with Black History Month. Work by artists Holly Oluwo, Claudius Fanusie and Rhiana Bonterre will be showcased throughout the month. OU will also be co-programming a film at the Folkestone Documentary Festival (21-23 October) and hosting a discussion of Black and LGBTQ local histories with Queer Film Heritage South. And there will be a two-week programme of exhibitions and events at Hythe Town Hall, exploring the entanglement of the military heritage of Hythe with trade, colonialism and racism.

Before all that, in September, OU will be contribute to the SALT Festival (see page 30), examining notions of migration, tradition, ethnicity and assimilation on a geological timescale. Community discussions, skillsharing and collaborative art-making will be presented alongside poetry, performance and visual artworks.

The little, pitch-black painted fishing shack that was the sanctuary of Derek Jarman, the artist, film-maker and gay rights activist, until his death in 1994, has long stood out on the shingle beaches of Dungeness.

Jarman’s innovative garden, a mash-up of hardy plants and found object sculptures, is a delight and open for passers-by to admire, but the cottage itself, stacked with his artworks and preserved by his late companion Keith Collins, was off-limits.

After a successful Art Fund campaign in 2020 raised £3.5 million to secure the property for the nation, Creative Folkestone were appointed its custodian. A caretaker and guides are now in place allowing, for the first time, guided tours inside of Prospect Cottage.

Prebooking via Creative Folkestone’s website is essential for the 40-minute tour slots by timed ticket. There are also plans for a series of artist residencies.

creativefolkestone.org.uk/prospect-cottage

@originsuntold originsuntold.com

More Romney Marsh If you do make a trip out to Dungeness, or anywhere else on “the Marsh”, an essential new resource is Everywhere Means Something to Someone: the people’s guidebook to Romney Marsh. As with other books in this superb series published by local arts organisation Strange Cargo, the Romney Marsh guide compiles over 300 stories, remembrances and recommendations of locals, pairing them with evocative photography of the mentioned locations. “I have always had a fascination with the other-worldliness of the place,” says Brigitte Orasinski, Strange Cargo’s artistic director. Staying true to its ethos of recording anything and everything, the guide is stacked with extraordinary tales and eyeopening facts, such as the Marsh having the UK’s largest population of medicinal leeches.

strangecargo.org.uk @strangecargoart

folkestonepride.org @pridefolkestone

Tune In Folkestone Here Before Us Blue plaques usually mark buildings where famous people lived, ie the heritage disc that records the residence of Charles Dickens at Folkestone’s Albion Villas in 1855. But recently, you’re likely to have noticed a rash of blue plaques affixed to the windows of shops and homes around town that celebrate, among others, confectioners, piano dealers and sulphate makers.

“It’s the normal people that I take an interest in,” says Folkestone-based Simon Warren, who set up Here Before, creating blue plaques that celebrate those whom he considers to be the “fabric of society”. To read more about Here Before Us, see page 31.

herebeforeus.co.uk @here.beforeus

Maybe it’s the squawk of seagulls flying overhead, the rattle of the train passing by or the laughter of children in the playground. Every street, space and neighbourhood has a unique sonic signature and Creative Folkestone’s artist in residence Randolph Matthews needs your help in recording them. This summer Matthews is pulling together a “living library” of sounds as part of his commission to create a soundscape of the town for Creative Folkestone’s 20th birthday celebrations. The final composition Tune In Folkestone will premier at the Quarterhouse on Thursday 13 October. Matthews will also be splicing 20 jingles to broadcast around town, so listen out for the Folkestone Earworm – it might contain your sound.

To get involved use your phone to make a 20 to 30 second audio recording and submit it via WhatsApp on 01303 763 400 or email it to info@creativefolkestone.org.uk

Rochester Independent College, where creative freedom meets academic excellence.

• 11+ to 6th form • Day & boarding • No uniform • Average class size 8 • Uni entrance specialists Call 01634 828115 or visit our virtual open house

In the top 2% of schools in England for value added progress at A level.

Winner of ISA Award for Excellence and Innovation in Fine Arts

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Summer Hotlist JULY Sandcastle Competition This annual event, running since 2009, raises money for the Church Street Project, a charity providing counselling for local kids and creative therapies using sand as one of their tools.

23 July, 9.30am to 1pm Sunny Sands facebook.com/ SandcastleFolkestone

Vegan Vibes

Last Friday

Shop for local and ethical vegan produce at this market supporting Kent producers.

Shops and galleries open late for performances, exhibitions and DJs.

15 August, 10am to 2pm

26 August, 5pm to 9pm

Guildhall Street

Along Tontine Street and The Old High Street

kentfoodhubs.co.uk @veganvibes_kentfoodhubs

★ Hythe Venetian Fete This spectacular procession of decorated floats down Hythe’s Royal Military Canal, accompanied by live music, entertainment and fireworks has been a summer fixture since 1890.

17 August, 5pm to 10pm

Into the Melting Pot A play, with songs and lively Spanish medieval music, set in Seville in 1492 at the home of a Jewish woman who has a lifechanging decision to make.

29 July, 7.30pm to 9.25pm St Mary & St Eanswythe’s Church, Church Street thetelling.co.uk/diary

The Royal Military Canal, Hythe hythevenetianfete.co.uk

★ Fly With Me Folkestone joins Afghan artists across the UK and Europe to take part in a festival of Afghan kite-making and flying, and storytelling, marking one year since the fall of Kabul.

20 August, 1pm

Last Friday Shops and galleries open late for performances, exhibitions and DJs. 29 July, 5pm to 9pm Along Tontine Street and The Old High Street @lastfridaysfolk

★ Trawler Race & Raft Race Saturday it’s boats and trawlers that race, while Sunday it’s the turn of rafts at this event organised by Cath Mison and Terry Noakes.

Casa Anacaona, Harbour Beach goodchance.org.uk/fly-with-meevents folkestonefringe.com creativefolkestone.org.uk

Folkestone Art Society Masterclasses Join Nikki Barratt to have a go at painting animals using watercolour on yupo paper.

20 August, 1pm to 4pm

@lastfridaysfolk

Sandgate Sea & Food Festival The highlight of this two-day event is the beachside firework display on Saturday 27 August.

27 and 28 August Granville Parade & Castle Road Car Park facebook.com/ SandgateSeaFestival

SEPTEMBER National Theatre Live: Much Ado About Nothing Katherine Parkinson and John Heffernan are the quarrelsome lovers Beatrice and Benedict in Shakespeare’s romcom of sun, sea and mistaken identity.

AUGUST The Boys of Summer – Canadian Baseball in Folkestone During the Great War is the topic of Andrew Taylor’s talk in this ever-popular series of local history lectures.

3 August, 8pm Holy Trinity Church Hall, Sandgate Road folkestonehistory.org

We Will Rock You One-hour version for schools and youth theatres of the West End musical.

5 and 6 August, 7.30pm Tower Theatre, North Road towertheatrefolkestone.co.uk @tttfolkestone

16 September, 8pm

The multi award-winning comedian and actor Omid Djalili offers an intelligent, provocative, entertaining stand-up performance.

Quarterhouse, Mill Bay

30 September, 8pm

creativefolkestone.org.uk

Quarterhouse, Mill Bay

@creativefstone

creativefolkestone.org.uk

Sunset Boulevard Founded in 1902, FHODS is one of the country’s oldest amateur dramatic companies.

For their big autumn production they are presenting Andrew Lloyd Webber’s awardwinning musical based on Billy Wilder’s legendary film about the faded, silent-screen goddess, Norma Desmond.

16 to 24 September Tower Theatre, North Road

Folkestone Art Society Masterclasses Get outside with Folkestonebased artist Ewen Macaulay for a lesson in Plein Air painting.

17 September, 1pm to 4pm Baptist Church, 135 Hill Road

creativefolkestone.org.uk

folkestoneartsociety.org.uk

@creativefstone

@folkestoneartsociety, @ewenmacaulay

Vegan Vibes

@folkestoneartsociety @n.barratt.art

19 September, 10am to 2pm

20 August , 8pm Tower Theatre, North Rd @tttfolkestone @punkandplume

★ Miles & Barr Folkestone Music Festival Weekend and Air Display Free performances from the Folkestone Pipes and Drums, Invicta Jazz Orchestra and the Dukes of Swing, climaxing on Sunday with a thrilling aerial display by the Red Arrows.

Also full sized replicas of WWII planes the Hurricane and Spitfire are on display as well as food, arts and crafts stalls and a classic car show.

20 and 21 August The Leas folkestonefestival.org

Shops and galleries open late for performances, exhibitions and DJs. 30 September, 5pm to 9pm Along Tontine Street and The Old High Street @lastfridaysfolk

Fab drag cabaret hosted by Dita Garbo and starring Adam All, Apple Derrieres and Sigi Moonlight.

8 October Tower Theatre, North Rd

OCTOBER Folkestone Comedy Club Eighth season of this always popular comedy night which comes with added Syrian street food! Join their mailing list to get first dibs on tickets.

1 October, 8pm Radnor Park Bowls Club folkestonecomedy.co.uk @folkestonecomedyclub

towertheatrefolkestone.co.uk @tttfolkestone @punkandplume

Jessica Fostekew: Wench Comedy set from the co-host of The Guilty Feminist Podcast about “sexy things (awkward), private things (oh no) and a woman trying to sit on the face of time to keep it still”.

9 October, 7.30pm Quarterhouse, Mill Bay creativefolkestone.org.uk @creativefstone

★ Folkestone Funny Fest

folkestoneartsociety.org.uk

Fab drag cabaret, hosted by Dita Garbo and featuring Richard Energy, Asifa Lahore and Cameron Claiborne.

Last Friday

@tttfolkestone

Shop for local and ethical vegan friendly produce at this market supporting Kent producers.

Punk & Plume

Punk & Plume

@creativefstone

Quarterhouse, Mill Bay

Baptist Church, 135 Hill Road

towertheatrefolkestone.co.uk

Local History Talks

The latest stand-up set from the star of Mock The Week and Radio 4’s The News Quiz and The Unbelievable Truth.

8 September, 7pm

Folkestone Harbour facebook.com/ FolkestoneTrawlerRace

Omid Djalili: The Good Times Tour

towertheatrefolkestone.co.uk

30 and 31 July, 10am to 1pm The Stade

Simon Evans: The Work of The Devil

Event organiser and celeb talent exec David Allbery promises to deliver “some of the best comedians on the circuit - the top of the field” for the inaugural Folkestone Funny Fest. And with the likes of TV panel game star Ed Byrne, prankster Simon Brodkin, award-winning stand-up Zoe Lyons and Hythe-based funny guy Andrew Maxwell in the line- up, he’s not joking! Allbery has also booked a couple of local bands to open up each night “so it feels more like a festival”.

9 and 10 September, 6pm to 10pm East Yard, Harbour Arm

Folkestone Songwriting Festival

Guildhall Street

Organised by local songstress Lorraine Lucas, this festival combines tutorials from songwriting pros and concerts in a variety of locations, including down on the beach.

kentfoodhubs.co.uk

6-9 October

@veganvibes_kentfoodhubs

St Eanswythes Church, Tower Theatre

Write By the Sea As well as hosting group meeting on the first Thursday of the month, this writing group has monthly guest events. For September it’s Michel Faber, author of Under the Skin and The Crimson Petal and the White, on writing for youngsters.

facebook.com/ FolkestoneSongwritingFestival

Tom Allen

The Big Draw Head to the location of the new garden town development Otterpool Park to take part in this free participatory drawing event, part of a nationwide festival of drawing.

10 October Folkestone Racecourse, Stone Street, Westenhanger thebigdraw.org

★ Tune in Folkestone The premiere of Randolph Matthews’s soundscape compiled from locally sourced audio clips as part of Creative Folkestone’s 20th birthday celebrations.

22 September, 7pm

13 October

The Hideaway, 16 Bouverie Rd West

Quarterhouse, Mill Bay creativefolkestone.org.uk

writebythesea.uk

@creativefstone

@writebythesea1

folkestonefunnyfest.com @folkestonefunnyfest

Andrew Maxwell Cutting edge gags from the Hythe-based comedian.

10 September Tower Theatre, North Road towertheatrefolkestone.co.uk @tttfolkestone

Kiri Pritchard-McLean: Home Truths Star of Have I Got News For You? and Live at the Apollo is back with a brand new tour.

22 September, 7.30pm Quarterhouse, Mill Bay creativefolkestone.org.uk @creativefstone

Camp comedy and riotous storytelling from the comedian, writer, actor and presenter of Bake Off: The Professionals.

7 October, 8pm Quarterhouse, Mill Bay creativefolkestone.org.uk @creativefstone

★

Our star picks

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NEW IN TOWN

MACKNADE

New

in town SUNFLOWER HOUSE While not new, the charity Sunflower House has recently undergone a reboot. This hub for advice, support and engagement for locals is offering several new services and acting as a base for the newly founded Folkestone Performing Arts Centre (fpac.info).

Community groups operating here include the clean-up project Folkestone Town Sprucer (folkestonesprucer.com) and Action on Homelessness (facebook. com/actiononhomelessnessinfolkestone) who feed around 70 homeless and vulnerable people at their lunches on Tuesday and Thursday. On Friday from 9.30am to 11am anyone can drop in for a cuppa to find out what’s going on, get some friendly advice or to join up as a volunteer. Also running here on the second Sunday of the month is Folkestone Repairs Together, the town’s very own version of The Repair Shop.

45 Foord Road sunflowerhouse.org.uk

JOHN DORY WINE SHOP & TASTING ROOM A new independent wine store and tasting room will open later this summer in Sandgate’s former Old English Pine Shop. The project is a collaboration between Andy and Sam Shorten, the founders of Folkestone’s Space Bar and Kitchen, local wine consultant Zeren Wilson, and Louisa Walls, born and raised in Folkestone and recently returned from two years living among French vineyards.

Oenophiles will be able to choose from over 150 wines, either to take home or to drink in, with cheese boards and charcuterie to accompany drinks.

Opening August 102 Sandgate High Street spaceseven.co.uk @johndorywine

The arrival of Faversham culinary legends Macknade at the Harbour Arm this summer is a case for true celebration. Based in a new set of containers on the Arm’s “harbourside”, overlooking the chalk cliffs of the Warren, the site combines a shop with an informal restaurant, showcasing a menu that features the provenancerich, quality ingredients that Macknade are famous for. For takeways and picnics there’s a deli serving cheese, charcuterie, and other nibbles. There’s also free corkage on the wines, beers and ciders bought in the shop so you can sample them with your meal at the restaurant.

Opening late summer, Harbourside, The Harbour Arm macknade.com @macknade

THE FOLKESTONE BOOKSHOP Tontine Street has long been the poor relation to the vibrant Old High Street when it comes to retail. Aiming to change that – and inject some literary panache – are the “rad folkes” offering “rad books” at the Folkestone Bookshop.

Set up by Jay Latarche and CP Hunter, who between them have over a decade’s experience in the book trade, this indie venture aims to be as much of a community hub as it is a home for essential reads, with plans for events and a café in the store.

Opening late summer 70 Tontine Street @thefolkestonebookshop

PUTTERS Look out for the new 12-hole adventure golf course and café on the beach next to the seafood restaurant Little Rock. It has been designed by City Golf Europe AB, a Swedish company that’s one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of adventure golf and mini golf courses – they created the courses at Leeds Castle and Alton Towers. The café here will be run by the same team who have made the Lift Café such a success.

Opening 1 August Beachside, Harbour Arm folkestoneharbourarm.co.uk

PULP FICTION One of Folkestone’s most gorgeous heritage facades is that of the Prince Albert Hotel, with its glazed tiles and elegant window frames. Giving the interior the love it deserves is Ben Denner, the force behind the hit burger restaurant and bar Lucky Chip. The old Victorian boozer has been reborn as Pulp Fiction, an independent wine shop and bar. “We plan to stock 250 wines from all over the world,” says Denner, “including champagne.” Staff will choose a selection of wines to serve by the glass each day and there will also be things to nibble, including cheese toasties made with Docker sourdough bread and local cheeses. Ben’s collection of vinyl will be spun on a top-range analogue system and, down the line, the old cellar will open as Folkestone’s most intimate drinking den.

29 Rendezvous Street @pulpfictionwine

BEACON PLUS CAFÉ

THE PARK INN When the Park Inn shut on new year’s eve 2021 many mourned its loss and feared it would be transformed into flats. However, Chris Brown and his partner Yaya, the powerhouse team behind Thong Dees Thai on Sandgate Road, were determined to take on the historic pub, investing pretty much everything they had to make their dream happen. With the façade and interior refreshed with forest green paint, the Park Inn has roared back to life as a bar that was known and loved for its live music gigs. In the coming months, the couple plan to launch a restaurant serving Thai-style tapas in the converted snug bar, and eventually refresh the hotel rooms upstairs giving them a more boutique vibe.

2 Radnor Park Road @theparkinnhotel

AIMEE CRADDOCK

To many, the café at Mind in Folkestone is known as Abercrombies in honour of Rupert Abercrombie, a former client of the mental health charity. However, since late 2021, it has also been branded the Beacon Plus Café, as it is now staffed by students from Beacon Plus, which provides education, training opportunities and support for 19 to 25year-olds with learning difficulties. The café serves light lunches, handmade cakes and drinks. During term times it’s open from 10am to 3pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and on Fridays from 11am to 2pm for collection of baked items such as focaccia, pizza and bread rolls, made by the students. There are plans to extend the hours to five days a week.

Having spent eight years working in London’s jewellery industry, Aimée Craddock relocated to Folkestone to focus on creating her own baubles.

Aimée’s hand-crafted jewellery is inspired by the brutalist and modernist movements, and you can see her at work in her combined studio and bijoux boutique which opened in May. She uses recycled precious metals and responsibly sourced gemstones to create her collections, that consist of textured, matte silver and rich 22carat gold vermeil, as well as unique commissioned pieces. The shop also showcases a curated selection of other crafts, including beautiful handmade ceramics from Modern Ceramics, prints from Karolina Eriksson and clothing from SGB.

3 Mill Bay facebook.com/beaconpluscafe

25 The Old High Street @aimeecraddockjewellery

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white noise

whi t

c a p es

Writer

Illustrator

Cathy White

Steve Boyd

e

The problem with holidays

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t’s that time of year when Facebook’s “snooze for 30 days” button gets a hammering. No, not because it’s football season, but because it’s holiday season.

While all over the country hairdressers look in the mirror to ask their customer’s reflection if it's going anywhere nice this year, I shake my head and continue swiping through Tinder for men with photos of cats.

OPINION

I just don’t see the point of going on holiday.

Living in Folkestone’s like being on holiday every day anyway. If you don’t believe me, take a stroll up to the café at Little Switzerland and check out the views from there – they’re absolutely glorious.

Besides, if my Facebook feed is anything to go by, I’m not missing out by staying put. As far as I can see, going on holiday doesn’t involve doing anything I can’t do from the comfort of my own home.

Eating and drinking, for example. Admittedly, going on holiday used to be a good excuse to indulge in even more food and alcohol than usual. Since I no longer drink, sitting outside a bar all day doesn’t have the appeal it once did. I do, of course, still eat. But, as much as I love eating out, Folkestone has exceptional eateries, with Dr Legumes at the Harbour Arm and Marleys in the Old High Street being two of my personal favourites.

Then we get to the third item in the holy trinity of things I don’t need to go abroad to do. Yes, I’m talking about reading. I’m an enthusiastic reader but it’s never occured to me to spend a large chunk of cash to sit on a beach and read. Facebook friends I didn’t even know could read suddenly become voracious readers as they smugly share the stack of books, wobblier than Party Bar punters at chucking out time, that they’re planning to squeeze into their suitcase.

It’s not just that I don’t need to go away to eat, drink and read. It’s also the whole hellish hassle of holidays I object to. International travel has never been an enjoyable experience, what with all the crowds and queues and getting told to take off your shoes, but in these post-pandemic days it’s even worse.

And speaking of feet, I don’t know when how

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many photos of one’s feet one could share to their social channels became the yardstick by which a good holiday was measured, but that appears to be where we are now. Sometimes it’s just feet. Sometimes there are legs attached to them. But my Facebook feed contains far more feet than anyone other than a hardcore foot fetishist needs to see. I don’t like feet

“My Facebook feed contains far more feet than anyone other than a hardcore foot fetishist needs to see” and I know I’m not alone in my dislike of them. I don’t even like my own feet and I’ve had them a long time, so you’d think I’d be used to them by now.

So please, even if you can’t resist sharing photos of cocktails, chips and book covers, just quit with the holiday feet.

I’m hoping one day Facebook will add a “snooze until [Facebook friend] gets back from holiday”, but until then, as soon as I see that airport check-in, that snooze button is getting a swipe.

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COMMUNITY

Skating towards regeneration: the inside story of F51

folkestone foghorn

Writer Simon Richmond

Photography Hufton+Crow

What does it take to create the world’s first multi-storey skate park?

Those involved in F51’s development share how it all came together

“

Roger calls me up and says, ‘Guy, I'm thinking about buying this building at the top of Tontine Street.’ I said, ‘Oh, the old bingo hall.’ He said, ‘What do you think we should do with it?’ It was derelict, so I said, ‘Err … knock it down?’ And he said, ‘OK. Let’s put up a car park.’”

That initial conversation between businessman and philanthropist Sir Roger De Haan and Guy Hollaway, the Hythe-based architect who has been his key architectural collaborator on a range of Folkestone revival projects, happened back in 2013. Nine years later that hypothetical car park is long forgotten, replaced with a unique tripledecker skate park, the tallest climbing wall in England’s south-east and a new home for Folkestone Amateur Boxing Club. Lauded as a game-changing piece of architecture, it is, according to Hollaway, a key piece in of the jigsaw of De Haan’s goal of “generational regeneration” for Folkestone.

However, the reason why Folkestone has the world’s first multi-storey skate park goes back further than 2013, and to a group of dedicated local boarders and BMXers. One of them was Alex Frost, 25, now a project officer for F51. “Growing up as a skater, we had the sports centre skate park,” recalls Frost, referring to wooden ramps that were once at the Folkestone Sports Centre near Radnor Park.

When that park was disbanded as the ramps rotted away, Alex and the local skate crew moved on to another skate park at the Shed. However, the Shed was on land set to be redeveloped as part of De Haan’s grand plan for Folkestone’s seafront. In 2017 a campaign was launched to save the Shed, which brought the town’s skater community into De Haan’s sights.

Hollaway continues: “Roger said there's this skate park down on the sea front … we're going to need to move them somewhere. Why don't you think about how you could integrate the car park with the skate park.” The architect went off and did research and some sketches. “My plan was to put the skate park on the roof and the cars underneath,” says Hollaway.

De Haan liked the plan but thought the car park part of it was “boring”. Over about six months, the concept changed so radically that the car park was ditched

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in favour of a multi-layered skate park with space for a climbing wall and a boxing club. “We wanted to create a hub for adrenaline sports, activities that you could enter into by yourself, and it didn’t matter what level you were,” says Hollaway.

When the initial drawings of his “harpsichord building of function” were made publicly available, the response was instant and far-reaching, with people from rapper MC Hammer to skateboarding legend Tony Hawk expressing their interest and approval.

However, coming up with a cool concept is one thing; making it a reality is another thing entirely.

“Creative thinking was required at all stages of the project, not just in design but also in construction methodology,” says architect Annabel Sawyer, a key member of Hollaway’s design team.

Hollaway admits “the engineering of [F51] was crazy… nobody had ever done this before. We wanted to put a concrete bowl up in the air. And we wanted to walk underneath it.”

To achieve the seemingly impossible, Hollaway brought in specialist skate park designers Maverick for know-how on the concrete bowl floor; Cambian for the timber skating floors; and structural engineers Ramboll UK to help design the composite concrete and the cantilevers needed to support the bowls.

In the original concept, F51 was going to be open-sided, but the experts pointed out the impact this would have on its useability. Hollaway realised it “might only rain for half an hour, but then you're buggered for the rest of the day,” with wet floors inside, so the decision was taken to shroud the building.

The next challenge was sourcing the best material for that façade. “It’s made up of over 400 crushed aluminium cassettes and every single cassette is different,” points out Hollaway. “We had to make a tooling machine, which crushes each panel, and then they are dipped and anodised to stop them rusting.”

Large panels of glazing to provide elevated views were not an option. “If a skateboard is flying through the air, it might smash into the glass,” says Hollaway. The façade’s small windows have rope net stretched across them and are triangulated so they’re smaller at the bottom where a catapulted skateboard is more likely to hit. There was also the need to control light inside the building. “The worst thing is that you’re skating and suddenly you’re blinded by sunlight,” notes Hollaway.

Jordan Mann from the Sports Trust (see box) started working on the skate park in 2017. “I knew there was this craze and hype over it … but there were obvious delays along the way. It was sad and frustrating,” says Mann referring to

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the spanner that Covid chucked in the F51 works. But both she and Frost agree that the pandemic also provided an opportunity.

“It was a blessing in disguise, because while F51 is an amazing, unique idea that it's such a unique idea, I think a lot of people didn't trust it. We had to build that trust and show that we cared about the community to make it as successful as we wanted it to be,” says Frost.

“The delay gave us more time to train people as skateboard coaches,” adds Mann. “We ran a skateboard festival down at the Harbour Arm called Pier Pressure. In the first year it had about 150 people attending … in the second ►

“It’s absolutely incredible – seeing skateboarding going from being this countercultural activity to what it is now” ▼ Artwork by Mr Doodle ©Simon Richmond

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year that had risen to 1500.”

The team also had the time to commission the artworks that are such a feature of F51’s walls, including that of the ground-floor café with its display of over 50 unique skate decks. “When it came to selecting the artists, we wanted them to be local, to be connected to the skateboarding scene, to have an interest and passion in these sports,” says Mann.

One of those artists is Frost, who under his pen name @shitpencil has built up over 37,000 followers on Instagram for his cartoon drawing style of illustrations of skaters.

A surprise last-minute addition to F51’s art came from Sam Cox, another client of Guy Hollaway. Better known as Mr Doodle, Cox’s mammoth doodles, which he calls “graffiti spaghetti”, are a huge international hit. Hollaway brought the Tenterden-based artist down to show him F51, to see if a mural could be added to the black-painted wall at the building’s base, that had been bugging him since a conversation with a local elderly lady who had criticised the building’s exterior as “ugly”.

“I suddenly realized how dead that façade was. It was just a black wall, not giving anything back to the town,” admits Hollaway. There was no money left in the budget, but Cox needed little persuading to transform the wall with a panoramic giant doodle of skateboarders, rollerbladers, rollerskaters, bikers and climbers. Cox also incorporated a “rad dad” with a Mohican haircut who was skating at the park with his child while he was creating the mural.

Mann points out that F51 is not just for kids, teens and the rad dads.

“It's about creating opportunities for everyone, regardless of your background, to be able to participate in these sports in some way and hopefully level the playing field.”

Only a few months into its opening, that vision appears to be working.

“There's dads and mums that have come down for one-to-one lessons and have started off not even being able to stand on a skateboard,” say Frost, “and now they're coming in, skating some of the hardest and scariest ramps in the park! It’s absolutely incredible – seeing skateboarding going through the shift from being this counter-cultural, rebellious, kind of screw-you society type of activity to what it is now – it’s a really healthy process.”

Meanwhile, the 15 metre tall climbing wall, designed by specialists King Kong, has been hosting free nights for the LGBTQI community. “We’ve recruited two amazing climbing instructors – the only female climbing team in the UK – who are both really passionate about the sport and have a keen interest in growing participation from minority groups,” says Mann.

There’s even an ambition to host the extraordinary sport of wheelchair motorcross. “It’s skateboarding on a wheelchair,” explains Frost. “They do flips on the ramps – it’s insane.”

“That's what's so special about F51,” says Mann. “We have no idea where it could go, but we've got so much potential.”

f51.co.uk thesportstrust.org hollawaystudio.co.uk

THE SPORTS TRUST Costing £17 million, F51 was funded by the Roger De Haan Charitable Trust and is operated by the Sports Trust, a charity that’s been working in the local community since 2013.

The trust also manages Three Hills Sports Park, another of the buildings that Hollaway designed for De Haan, and runs a variety of programmes to encourage people into sport and fitness from school kids to senior citizens.

“We're all about creating inclusive, inspiring environments, and getting people to love sport,” says Jordan Mann, head of marketing and communications for the trust.

“We’ve worked in traditional sports for a very long time. We are in schools, and part of the community, but not everyone likes traditional sports. The sports hosted [at F51] are individual sports, they don't have to be competitive. A lot of the time you're competing against yourself… You only have to look at how a climber assesses a wall and how to move their body.

This is such a creative sport.”

It’s also about teaching resilience.

“In all these sports you fall down at some point,” says Mann. “There may be bruised egos at the time, but it’s always about getting back up and keeping going.”

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BUSINESS

HARBOUR RENAISSANCE Writer Olivia Franklin

Images courtesy of Folkestone Harbour Arm

Rejuvenated with scores of businesses, the once derelict and redundant Harbour Arm stretching out to sea now seems like a distant dystopian memory

S

ince Roman times Folkestone has been a trading port, a hub for fishing, and in sync with the Pent Stream, until industrialism took its course. The Harbour Arm, as we see it today, was completed in 1905, transforming Folkestone into a major gateway to continental Europe and offering a hiatus from urban life.

Faced with competition from the Dover to Calais route and the Channel Tunnel, the ferries from the Arm halted in 2000. The Arm declined into a no-man's land, with a sci-fi-esque pilot tower, disused railway platforms and surrounding wastelands. In 2004 philanthropist Sir Roger De Haan and his team, later becoming the Folkestone Harbour & Seafront Development Co, set out to investigate how to regenerate the site. A new, long-term vision was born.

Fast-forward to 2014, and the start of the Harbour Arm’s second life. The restoration, overseen by Folkestone Harbour & Seafront Development Co, was crafted to help preserve as much of the arm’s heritage and natural environment as possible. Arts organisation Folkestone Fringe was brought on board to convert the arm into a collection of independent bars, restaurants and event spaces, over time transforming it into a key site for the cultural calendar.

“We will invest more into the animation of Folkestone Harbour this year than at any other time since it was first reopened to the public,” Dan Johannsen, commercial communications manager, tells me.

By the end of 2022 there will be approaching 60 businesses operating across the arm in four distinct areas: the main Arm itself, the Goods Yard, Harbourside (the east side of the main car park) and Beachside. I went down to chat to some of the Arm’s pioneers as well as new recruits. ►

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Simon and Jessica Robinson

LIGHTHOUSE CHAMPAGNE BAR “We had a big influence on why things are the way they are,” says Simon Robinson, who with his wife Jessica launched the Lighthouse Champagne Bar at the start of the Arm’s renaissance.

With a background in prop-making, photography, film and graphics, the pair were making signage for the arm when, after a tipple or two, they began to get ideas about turning the empty lighthouse and fog signal station into a bar.

“Our initial plan was to transform it into an absinthe bar,” Jessica tells me.

However, champagne was favoured for the grade II-listed site by the arm’s management and English Heritage.

Everybody expected just a pop-up in that first year, but the bar has become a true staple in Folkestone’s food, drink and events scene.

Their latest venture is the Tasting Rooms, dressed with copper finishes, orange trees, a French-style shop front, and a velvet-encompassed secret stage, located in the Arm’s Platform 4 building.

It’s an extension of the Lighthouse, “enabling us to offer food like we’ve always wanted to do,” adds Jessica. The Tasting Rooms feature an in-house delicatessen offering cuts of meat, cheese, fish, and oysters – all of which can be transported between the two venues on rickshaws.

There will also be an open-all-year indoor bistro and outdoor dining area (which can be hired for private parties), where you can graze while getting your weekly jazz fix – the Tasting Rooms and the Lighthouse will host their largest music and events programmes to date.

As testament to its name, the Tasting Rooms will also host wine-tastings for Kent and Sussex-based vineyards. It’s fair to say that they are certainly enhancing exactly what they do best.

Jamie Evans and Emily Fahey

LIFT CAFÉ Falling in love with a place and cementing your future in it is also the experience of Jamie and Emily. The couple, who already ran a little coffee cart at King’s Cross, made the move to Folkestone in 2018 to start a family.

In 2020, when lockdown halted their London livelihood, they sought to establish a business here.

Two years later, the Lift Café (at the base of the mothballed Leas Lift Funicular railway) is a favourite of many Folkestone’s café habitués.

“Our rent and percentage of turnover goes towards getting the lifts up and running again,” says Jamie.

Emily tells me they “are so proud that we will forever be part of the building’s history”. Having conceived a love of “being part of the local business scene”, the dream now includes a successful proposal to run Putters café at the new Beachside adventure golf site, offering high-quality, family-friendly food and drink.

Drifting along the coastline towards an opportunity Jamie proclaims as “too good to miss”, they will also be running a new coffee kiosk at Sunny Sands. Their dedication to place-making makes total sense.

Mark Babins

SOLE KITCHEN Mark Babins, who runs three Arm businesses – Sole Kitchen, Harbour Coffee Co and the Fish Shack – remembers his late business partner Michael Lake ringing him frantically and saying, “They’ve opened up this place down the front, it’s amazing, you need to come down and see it.” Not being involved in the catering world, many of Mark’s friends couldn’t see the attraction of what they perceived as a “concrete thing out to sea”. But Mark had a vision – one which has grown exponentially over seven years.

“Across the Arm you’ll find expanded menus and new visions” In the beginning the Arm felt like a “festival in someone’s back garden”, which worked in Mark’s favour as he fitted the businesses out himself. (He lives by the mantra, “Building things is important in life.”) With catering and customer service in his blood, and a general feeling of missing of his old coffee shop business, Mark started out by going with the ebb and flow of the seasons – but only to a point.

At Sole Kitchen he has rejigged the menu, improved service and added more seating. Harbour Coffee Co is now a double-storey brunching hotspot – arguably with the best view in Kent and an extended interior that includes a coffee roastery preparing 60 kilos of beans per hour. Meanwhile Mark’s Fish Shack in the Goods Yard offers a full fish’n’chip, locally sourced menu. And despite Mark not being keen to “keep too many” businesses, he’s “too much in love with both areas of the Arm”, as the environmental elements seem to sync up with one another.

Laura Taylor

WILDBOX As I get myself comfy in the ridiculously stylish refurbishment that is Wildbox (next to the Tasting Rooms), Laura gives me a picture of where it all started three years ago, at a time when she ran Wildbox solo as an events company. Adapting to make ends meet through the pandemic, Laura began offering virtual cocktail-making classes and delivering cocktail kit boxes to first a local then a nationwide customer base. Her rebooted business gained such exposure that Vanity Fair listed it as a Christmas gift of the year for 2020.

After receiving a recommendation to apply for the Harbour Arm, and believing “everything happens for a reason”, Laura decided to set up shop here. Now “it’s more of a dining experience,” she confirms, a “more Wildbox experience” in full force, as I experience at the bar with its plush furnishings, fresh flowers, and Instagrammable design knick-knacks.

There is a bigger menu, representative of the long-standing relationships with Kent-produced spirits that are used in their speciality cocktails, plus a full range of other beverages.

Short-term plans include finessing the bar by adding a charcuterie-like offering to pair with drink choice, a continued blossoming events business with increased staffing, and utilising the outdoor space to make it a “bit more Wildbox”. Laura’s long-term goals are to turn the venue into a club with open-mic nights, cocktailmaking classes and tasting nights hosted by their Kentish producers.

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Future developments This is all just the tip of the iceberg. An expansion of the Goods Yard has also been underway, welcoming new traders like Italian street food stall Il Pakkero and A Taste of Thailand run by Cheriton favourite Daow’s Kitchen. An improved Harbour Screen is hosting a free film and sports programme, and will be the platform for open-air events including Folkestone’s first-ever Comedy Festival.

There’s also Marketplace, a permanent retail base that builds on the successful Sunday market that runs along the old harbour railway platform.

As the Beachside area expands – new vendors are due to take spots beside Little Rock and the Pilot – the Harbourside extends its quayside dining experience, with views overlooking Kent’s Heritage Coast (which was rated the fourth best region to visit in the world in 2022 by Lonely Planet). Here, 175-year-old Kent food and drink visionary Macknade will take up residence with a restaurant and retail offering, as will others.

All across the Arm you’ll find expanded menus and new visions, including the Argentine bliss of Minutas al Paso, a slice of the US west coast and Mexico at Burrito Buoy, a neon haven for desserts at the Dessert Folkes,

BUSINESS

and what could be the last pub before France at the Famous Dog and Otter.

With those businesses that have been there to witness the change, such as Dr Legumes, Docker, Bobbies Bakehouse, That Burger and the Little Greek Bus, all are not only part of Folkestone’s booming foodie culture, but make up what the British seaside experience can become.

They represent the power and potential of aligning your dreams through a belief in this special place I call home, on the edge of England.

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Mad for momos Writer Zeren Wilson

Photographer Simon Richmond

The Cheriton-based writer of the food and wine blog Bitten & Written shares his love of Nepali cuisine and the best places to find it in Folkestone

M

y first momo dumpling was served at Annapurna (15 Cheriton Place) in 2018: it’s been a love story ever since. Owners Tej (a former Gurkha) and Sangita Tamang, and Devendra Limbu and his wife Dhupa Rai offer the kind of welcome that truly feels like you are dining at their family table, the spirit of Nepali hospitality brimming and evident with every plateful. I love every iteration of momo here, pleated pucks of dumpling joy: simply steamed to be dipped into spicy homemade achar (tomato chutney); chilli momos stir-fried with peppers and onions; fried momos that lavishly explode with flavour as you bite into them; jhol momos bobbing in broth – Momo Mia, here I go again. Then there are the fantastic tarkari curries, the pakoras with impossibly crisp batter, the deeply soothing Kathmandu black daal. It’s my idea of the perfect local restaurant.

Folkestone’s first Nepali restaurant, opened in 2001, was Gurkha Palace in Enbrook Valley, which has the added bonus of having Sandgate’s glorious beach just moments away. Run by Rabin Shrestha and his son Suprim, it’s where I head to for my favourite Juwano prawn curry cooked in a rich sauce humming with lovage seeds, and the “staff curry”, which is chef’s own home-style lamb recipe: charmingly, perfectly named. Or how about poleko salmon, marinated in Nepali spices and chargrilled: hit after hit. On a Friday night it has the happiest buzz in town, crammed with regulars. “I love living in Folkestone,” Rabin tells me. “It’s beautiful living here by the sea, lovely sunsets and we have lots of loyal, happy

▼ Rabin Shrestha in front of Gurkha Palace

customers – they are like family to us.”

The Himalayan Café (41 Cheriton High St) is a stagger away from where I live in Cheriton, as well as the closest restaurant to the Gurkha Rifles base at nearby Shorncliffe barracks, which was established in 1794 as a base for soldiers during the Napoleonic wars. Opened in 2011 by Tej of Annapurna, it’s now run by his cousin Athit Tamang and family and serves Gurkha-style food to a regular throng of young Gurkha soldiers, who happily tuck in to thukpa noodle soups, pork ribs in curry sauce, and the mightily addictive aloo nimki, a traditional street food snack of spicy masala potatoes, crunchy wheat crackers and chilli. It's an exhilarating combination of creamy potatoes jiving against the crunch of cracker with a whack of chilli. “Lucky to have such a great Nepalese restaurant near our barracks – feels like home,” is a comment online, and is all the recommendation that’s needed: Gurkhas say YES. The Everest Cash & Carry (12-14 Cheriton High St) is a Nepali treasuretrove crammed with a plethora of spicy Nepali pickles, dried pulses, chillies and fresh herbs, pastes and relishes. ►

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▼ Gurkha memorial statue on Sandgate Road

Walking out with some dalla (pickled red cherry peppers) and tama (bamboo shoots) feels like striking gold. I’m regularly dropping in here to browse the shelves and pick up a new paste or relish, excellent dried noodles, or some herbs and vegetables. A big wholesale resource for the restaurants in town, it’s a sure bet for impeccable ingredients and lesser-seen items.

There’s a real sense that the relationship of the Nepali locals with Folkestone has true harmony, with the community an integrated and visible part of living in Folkestone, from the Gurkhas pounding along the seafront in backpacks as part of daily training, to the access to the kind of homestyle cooking that would otherwise require a flight to Kathmandu and a foray into the mountains.

“People like us living here and the locals are happy for us to be in Folkestone,” Tej Tamang tells me when I ask him what the reception has been like since he arrived in Folkestone in 2000 after serving with the Gurkhas in Hong Kong. “We have a good connection with the local council and have been welcomed warmly by the community, which made me happy to stay.”

Delving into Nepali cuisine when I first started coming to Folkestone played a big part in my decision to move here.

Knowing that I could eat as well as this, served with genuine warmth and hospitality, gave me all the assurance I needed. If I wasn’t already convinced, Tej of Annapurna did something so generous for me that sums up the Nepali spirit of goodwill: he framed my review of the restaurant and placed it on the wall. I love the people and I love their food. Lucky, lucky Folkestone.

bittenandwritten.com annapurnafolkestone.co.uk gurkhapalace.co.uk

▼ Devendra Limbu (left) and Tej Tamang of Annapurna

▲ Everest Cash & Carry

Who Are the Gurkhas?

The Royal Gurkha Rifles (1st Battalion) moved from Aldershot to Folkestone in 2000, but this crack Nepali fighting troupe’s association with Britain goes back further. During the Anglo-Nepalese war in the early 19th century, a 600-strong Nepalese garrison led by Captain Balbhadra Kunwar held out against 5000 British troops for over a month before the survivors fought their way through the besieging force and escaped into the hills. That battle sealed the Gurkha’s reputation as fearless warriors and the British soon recruited them under the East India Company banner to fight alongside rather than against them.

The Gurkhas hit the headlines when Joanna Lumley, whose father served as a Gurkha officer, led the successful Gurkha Justice Campaign in 2008, fighting for the right for all Gurkha veterans who had served for four years or more before 1997 to be allowed to settle in Britain. In 2015, to mark the 200th anniversary of service in the British army, a life-size Gurkha statue was unveiled in Folkestone by Lumley, a fitting and lasting tribute to the town’s relationship to the Nepalese community.

Opened in October 2021, the Folkestone Nepalese Community Centre (fncuk.org) on Baker Road is used as a social hub and to help the elderly and older veterans access digital services as well as to host events and activity classes.

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harvesting the hops Writer Simon Richmond

Photographer Paul Cochrane

Come September it’s all hands on as the community farm Hythe Hops gathers up fresh cones to make this year’s green hop beer

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t her allotment on a sunny June morning, Pat Cocks is knelt beside one of a dozen leafy hop plants, demonstrating the fine art of “twiddling”. “I got hooked on it when I was a young mum in the mid 1960s and used to do part-time work on a farm near my home in Tonbridge,” she explains.

Twiddling is the nifty-fingered work of twisting hop bines around a taut string to encourage them to grow vertically. “You need to go clockwise,” explains Pat, “otherwise they’ll unwind and drop to the ground.”

Hops are key to that most quintessential of Kent beverages: beer. The plant is believed to have been first imported to the British Isles by the Romans. But it was during the 16th century that hop growing really took off in Kent. By 1724 Daniel Defoe was describing the county as the “mother of all hop grounds”.

In the early 1970s Pat worked as a guide at the Whitbread hop farm at Beltring. Vast commercial hop fields like that have all but vanished from Kent.

Recently, though, filling the void have been “patchwork farms” – communities clubbing together to grow hops in their gardens, allotments, or any other suitable space including, logically enough, pub beer gardens. The hops which are harvested are then passed on to local brewers to make beer.

Blazing the trail locally in 2017 was Deal Hop Farm (dealhopfarm. org.uk) which currently has over 250 growing sites involving 400 people.

Their success inspired the creation in 2019 of Hythe Hops, of which Pat is a founder member. The irony for Pat is ◄ Pat Cocks picking hops

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▲ David Poore and his wife in their garden beside their hops

that she doesn’t drink beer. “I’m not particularly keen on it,” she laughs, “although I did drink the occasional lager and lime when I was younger.”

“We grow the Prima Donna dwarf variety of hop, developed at Wye College,” says fellow founding member and hop marshal David Poore. “You don’t need a lot of space as it doesn’t grow much taller than a runner bean plant and it can last for over fifteen years.”

In their third season in 2021, Hythe Hops harvested over 110 kilos of hops, “enough to make over 10,000 pints of beer”, according to David.

There’s an annual membership of £5 to join the group with an additional £10 for a hop plant, hop twine and growing tips from the group. They also organise many social events through the year for their 200 plus members, including beer tastings.

Docker Brewery and Hopfuzz are the two Folkestone and Hythe-based micro-breweries using hops from Hythe Hops in their beers. Computer programmer Pete Nelson and web designer Wes Burden set up Docker in 2016 as a weekend side hustle of baking sourdough loaves and brewing one type of beer (their popular DFL American pale ale). From being run out of a converted shipping container at Folkestone harbour’s east yard, Docker has since grown into a full-time business producing a core range of six ales, plus rotating specials, and accounting for 5,000 pints a month and rising.

Docker’s base for brewing and baking relocated to the Riverside Craft Centre in West Hythe in 2021, the same site at which Hopfuzz have their brewery, and home also to the café-bar Unit1 (unit1riverside.co.uk).

Their original container operation at Folkestone is now an expanded

retail unit and tap room where you can enjoy all the Docker products.

Both locations will be hosting events in early October’s Green Hop Beer Fortnight (kentgreenhopbeer.com). This is an opportunity to sample green hop beers made with hop flowers, or cones, that are picked at their prime. It’s a fulltime endeavour in mid-September for the Hythe Hop team to harvest cones from some 175 locations and get them to the brewers within the 12-hour period that is required for a bona fide green hop beer.

“Fresh cones can have over a thousand different compounds in their oils,” explains Pete from Docker. This results in a completely different tasting beer from that made with dried hops, and one that generates as much excitement among beer lovers, as does the release of Beaujolais nouveau among oenophiles.

The remaining hops from the harvest are dried at Hukins Hops near Tenterden, then given to Docker and Hopfuzz for their regular beer production through the year. “That we give away the hops surprises people,” remarks David.

“Members usually get a can or bottle of green hop ale for their troubles, but there’s no contract, it’s just goodwill.”

“It’s really captured the imagination of people,” adds Pete, “and helped us grow our business, enabling us to find people who are interested in the same thing as we are and making us feel like we are part of the community.”

hytheenvironmental.community/ hythe-community-hop-farm @hythephops dockerbrewery.com @dockerbrewery hopfuzz.com @hopfuzzbrewery

▼ Green hop cones

▲ Pete Nelson of Docker Brewery

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Sat 27 & Sun 28 August 2022

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folkestone foghorn

MUSIC

25

World’s First Music Town Writer

Lucy Atkins

Folkestone was crowned “the world’s first music town” in 2019 – but what does it mean exactly, and what’s been happening since?

“

C’mon, how you feeling? Alright?!

OK!” It’s a muggy Monday evening at the Chambers, and Folkestone Music Town founder Dr Julia Jones is on the mic, psyching up the crowd of music makers and shakers assembled in the cavernous venue. She’s not about to break out into performance though. Tonight’s event is part of an ongoing series of meet-ups bringing the local music community together to discuss what’s next for FMT – and how to keep it thriving.

“In September 2019, on BBC Music Day, we announced ourselves as the world's first music town,” Jones explains. “We’re the first town to have brought all the stakeholders together – like the music cities do – and formalized in writing that we recognize that music is an asset that drives economic development, tourism, education and health.”

A neuroscientist interested in music as a biohack, Jones had worked as a consultant on projects involving the music cities model, which is what gave her the lightbulb moment for FMT. “Being a Folkestone resident, I was looking around thinking, ‘Well, we've got an amazing heritage and we actually tick all of the same boxes as the model that we've been developing for cities,’” she says.

Getting the council on side was crucial, particularly as various licensing policies at the time were increasingly positioning music as a problem: from proposed 11.30pm curfews to busking being recategorized as an antisocial

◄ Dr Julia Jones

behaviour.

Jones called the first meeting in late 2017, ahead of what would have been Jimi Hendrix’s 75th birthday, where it was decided that a Hendrix festival would be held “as a test to see if we can all collaborate”. It was an apt way to celebrate the town’s rich musical history: Jimi Hendrix Experience bassist Noel Redding was from Folkestone and both he and Hendrix played an early gig here in 1966.

“Our music heritage as a town is huge and is born of the artistes of legend,” says Chris Smith, who opened the Chambers (facebook.com/ thechambers) with Liz Smith in 1998 and has worked closely with Jones.

“It would be remiss and downright reckless to allow the recognition of this history to (a) be forgotten and (b) not be capitalised upon for the future.”

The festival was attended by Redding’s

▲ Beans on Toast at the Chambers

family and culminated in a happy birthday singalong with Hendrix’s family in Seattle, via Zoom. “That was

“Music should be protected and celebrated and championed everywhere” pretty cool,” Jones remembers. Next the collective moved on to lobbying against the licensing issues and managed to get both plans stopped.

“Once they [the council] were on board, we started looking at writing a new busking code for the town, so

that it was championed instead of being positioned as a kind of antisocial nuisance. And that was the first part of the music strategy,” Jones explains.

Nina Clark, a local singer-songwriterguitarist and founder of community interest company Musical Walkabout (musicalwalkabout.com), has been involved with FMT since its inception and is working with Jones to shape the next part of the strategy – how music is recognized in the town for mental health and wellness. Clark founded Musical Walkabout in 2015 “as a way to promote the use of music to support wellbeing for people experiencing social isolation”. Delivering one-to-one music sessions in care homes has had a profound and positive impact on residents living with dementia. “Music is so accessible, and it is so obvious the joy it can bring,” Clark says.

Also central to FMT are singer, songwriter, topliner and vocal coach Sophia Stutchbury and music producer Tim Smith, aka Technical Finger. ►

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MUSIC

The couple run Seaview Studio (seaviewstudio.co.uk), a recording and rehearsal space on Dover Road, and have more recently taken over the FMT chair position. “​Folkestone has captured ours and many other people's hearts… It's a special place and there's a huge pot of talent,” Stutchbury says.

“We are delighted to be championing it, continuing to fly the flag, and celebrating this wonderful status.”

Over at Seaview Studio, Smith and Stutchbury have been working with singer-songwriter, producer and teacher Florence Glen on the Beats

by Girlz (beatsbygirlz.org) workshops.

Glen was keen to bring the initiative to the UK, explaining: “I am passionate about increasing access to music production skills – especially with girls, women and gender-non-conforming people. You just don’t see enough of these groups in music production/ engineering circles.” For Glen, the course is especially significant, “as you can’t have a music town without having music education at the heart of it.” The first students to attend were testament to that, as music production wasn't offered at their school. “They also said there weren’t any girls doing music at GCSE or A-level,” Glen says.

“Knowing that made me sad but also confirmed to me how important BBG is.”

Although the town’s music scene has inevitably struggled thanks to lockdowns and subsequent venue closures (“We lost three venues in Folkestone alone,” says Smith), its status as a music town has still been a big draw for attracting more musicians to the area. Smith says that 30% of

the bands booked at the Chambers in 2019 were new to playing Folkestone.

“There is a wealth of talent in the town – a lot still untapped. It is so important to give them the opportunity to showcase themselves,” agrees John D Barber, treasurer and events organiser at Folkestone Festivals (folkestonefestival. org), which presents free music at the Leas Bandstand during the summer. In 2021, “the number of groups, bands and musicians desperate to play increased five-fold,” Barber says. “The audience was obviously ready to start having a good time and our crowds were three times larger than in previous years.”

So what's next for FMT? “​ We have many plans and have to stop ourselves from trying to do them all at once. We are looking to hold a Folkestone Music Town festival next year,” Stutchbury shares. Jones, meanwhile, is busy working on Neuron Wellness (neuronwellness. com), a space on Tontine Street showcasing the latest science around longevity and ageing – and how music as a “superpower” can help.

As for Folkestone remaining the world’s first and only music town, that’s definitely not the vision. “What I'd really like to see is another town do what we've done,” Jones says. “Copy it so that there are music towns all over the place. Music should be protected and celebrated and championed everywhere.”

For the latest Folkstone Music Town news, live music and meet-ups, visit folkestonemusic.co.uk or follow on socials @FolkestoneMusic and via the hashtag #folkestonemusictown

▼ Sophia Syndicate, a band fusing electronic and acoustic music styles

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gig guide From dub icons to emerging alt-rock bands, local singer and music journalist Lucy Atkins curates her pick of the best gigs coming up in town over the next few months Melting Vinyl + Creative Folkestone presents Martha Wainwright + Roseanne Reid Canadian-American musician Martha Wainwright stops off in Folkestone on the third date of her UK tour, fresh off the back of last year’s album Love Will Be Reborn. Beautifully heartfelt and delivered with Wainwright’s signature irreverence (this is a singer who wrote “Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole” about her father, folk legend Loudon Wainwright III, after all), it’s music that deserves to be heard in the flesh. With support from Scottish singer-songwriter Roseanne Reid.

29 July, Quarterhouse @creativefolkestone

Neighbour Skateboards pop-up shop with Hot Smoothie Indie upstarts Hot Smoothie played a roaring set at Open Quarter’s Parkfest in July and the lads are set to play Tontine Street’s Brewery Tap this September. With just one track online far (the anthemic “Red World”), the fourpiece are already generating a bit of buzz around Folkestone – and it won’t be long until their gig diary fills up further afield. Catch them on the small stage while you can.

10 September, Brewery Tap @hotsmoothieband Anna Ash If you’ve watched the US television series Billions or Masters of Sex, chances are you’ll have heard the sweet yet smoky vocals of Michigan-born Anna Ash without even knowing it. The folkpop artist’s nostalgic songs and sharp lyricism are the stuff of soundtrack dreams – and her latest album, Sleeper, out on Oklahoma indie label Black Mesa Records, is another cinematic triumph.

Don’t miss her Folkestone debut.

Hellfire Corner presents Mad Professor with support from FUSS DJ's

15 September, the Chambers @@thechambers1998

Looking for jazz in Folkestone? You’re in luck, as local songstress Maiuko has taken up residency at the Tower Theatre every last Thursday of the month, hosting a lineup of national and international musicians spanning the genre. August’s edition welcomes the African and jazz-influenced grooves of high-energy sextet, Hexagonal – who, as individual players, have racked up an impressive list of credits including the likes of Roy Ayers, Van Morrison, Alicia Keys and Mark Ronson. Book ahead, as these often sell out.

​​ August, Tower Theatre 25 @tttfolkestone

01303 487656

theknotthairandbeautybooking@hotmail.com

14 September, the Chambers @smannasmash

It’s not every day you get to see a ​​UK dub pioneer play an intimate basement venue on the coast – but that’s exactly what'll be happening at the Chambers come September, as Mad Professor takes to the stage. The long-time friend and collaborator of Lee “Scratch” Perry is regarded as one of the leading producers of dub’s second wave, while his prolific remix credits include the likes of Massive Attack and the Beastie Boys. Prepare to get sweaty.

World Jazz Live Sessions presents Hexagonal

hair & beauty

Folkestone Skabour Festival 2022 Folkestone's one and only ska and reggae festival is back for another year – and with a lineup that includes Desmond Deckers Aces ft. Delroy Williams, former The Bodysnatchers lead singer Rhoda Dakar, and the Queens of lovers rock themselves, Janet Kay and Carroll Thompson, it’s set to be a banger.

Elsewhere, there’s a scooter ride-out, a screening of ​​Rudeboy: The Story of Trojan Records and plenty of DJs to get the skanking started. Don’t play silly games – just book it, already.

16-18 September, The Grand Burstin @loveskabour

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Bail Steps off The Old High Street

The Bayle CT20 1AS

www.woodshed.gallery woodshed@piebiz.net tel 01303 240432

@thewoodshed_folkestone @clare_hamilton_design

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HISTORY

29

Remembering Samuel Plimsoll Writer Angela Conyers

Photographer Simon Richmond

Later this summer a mural celebrating the “sailor’s friend” will be unveiled at Folkestone’s Fishing Heritage and History Museum

I

n June this year at the annual memorial service held in St Martin’s Church, Cheriton, to commemorate the life of Samuel Plimsoll (1824-1898), the choir and attendees sang: So a cheer for Samuel Plimsoll, and let your voices blend In praise of one who truly, has proved the sailor’s friend.

This music hall song from 1876 is about the MP and social reformer, who is best known for the introduction of the Plimsoll Line, the marking on ships indicating the safe level at which they can be loaded. The line was introduced in the late 19th century after a hardfought campaign against ship-owners who took no responsibility for the loss of life among crew when their overloaded “coffin-ships” went down.

Plimsoll lived in Augusta Gardens in Folkestone in his later years and is buried in St Martin’s churchyard, a fact that, until recently, relatively few Folkestonians were aware of. However that has changed thanks to the efforts of writer and literary critic Nicolette Jones, author of the award-winning book The Plimsoll Sensation: the great campaign to save lives at sea, first published in 2007.

“When I moved to Plimsoll Road in Finsbury Park, London, I became intrigued as to who Plimsoll was and what he had achieved,” says Jones.

While Plimsoll was celebrated in his birth town of Bristol, and in London, Jones discovered there was little to commemorate Plimsoll in Folkestone. “I wanted to rectify this,” she explains, “so I helped establish the annual memorial service in 2014 and became the patron of the Folkestone Samuel Plimsoll Memorial Campaign.”

The annual service and wreath-laying was introduced both to raise Plimsoll’s profile in the town, and to raise funds towards a lasting memorial. Jones herself spoke at the first service, and other speakers have included Horatio Clare and Admiral Lord Boyce, Lord Warden

▲ Shane Record working on the mural in his Old High Street studio

of the Cinque Ports. Daphne Rose and other direct descendants of Plimsoll have supported the campaign and attended events which have included exhibitions and a conversation between the author Michael Morpurgo and Jones in 2019 at a packed Tower Theatre.

The campaign committee also approached Go Folkestone, a

community group that had been successful in the past in raising funds for local projects. Go Folkestone agreed that they would add funds towards a memorial, and extra funds were also promised from local councillors.

Once the target was met the search was on for a suitable location and a suitable memorial. In viewing various possible sites, the campaign committee agreed that the outside walls of Folkestone’s Fishing Heritage and History Museum would be the ideal place. With both Josh de Haan, the building’s owner, and the Fishing Museum trustees on board, it was decided that a painted mural was the most appropriate choice for this location.

Having submitted some preliminary drawings and ideas, Shane Record was chosen as the mural artist. The finished painting shows Plimsoll looking through a rain-splattered window, witnessing a scene of a foundering cargo ship below Folkestone’s East Cliff being rescued by local lifeboats. Record hopes that the rain on the window and the stormy seascape “adds to the poignancy of the intended work … [Plimsoll’s] championing the oppressed is a timely and powerful reminder for us today.”

An adjoining plaque produced by

the Fishing Museum will show the Plimsoll Line and some brief notes about Plimsoll.

“I am so grateful to the campaign committee who have worked together to bring about this commemoration of their own local, national and international hero,” says Jones. “It has long been a dream of mine and theirs that Samuel Plimsoll should have a monument in the place he chose to inhabit in his later years.”

“I am very excited indeed about the mural … and cannot wait to see it,” adds Jones. “At last Plimsoll and Folkestone will have the memorial they deserve.

May it serve as a reminder to us all that determined individuals can make the world a better place.”

Folkestone Plimsoll Memorial Campaign facebook.com/FolkestonePlimsoll MemorialCampaign Folkestone Fishing Museum wheelsoftime.uk/museums-andheritage-sites/folkestones-fishingheritage-and-history-museum Shane Record shanerecord.com

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FESTIVAL

salt of the earth Writer Sophie Hoffman

Photographer Simon Richmond

SALT Festival is set to make its return to Folkestone in September, but this time in an expanded form and with a new name

C

o-curated by Creative Folkestone and Folkestone Fringe, this year the SALT Festival of the Sea, Landscape and Environment will look inland as well as out to sea through a partnership with Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

Kent Downs AONB has provided funding for the festival as part of their bid to be designated a Unesco Global Geopark. The proposed geopark area takes in the Kent Downs from Sevenoaks to Folkestone and Dover, the Channel, and the area in France on the other side.

“The cross-Channel Geopark is an incredible opportunity to celebrate the internationally important geodiversity of the Kent Downs, which extends under the Channel and into the Parc Naturel Régional des Caps et Marais d’Opale,” says Greg Taylor, a project officer with Kent Downs. “Geoparks are all about local people exploring and understanding how the geology of their area has shaped all aspects of our lives, from the towns and buildings we live in, to the natural beauty of the Kent Downs landscape and the Heritage Coast.”

The festival aims to build public awareness, engagement and support for the international geopark, by “revealing the beautiful landscape to the people who live here and visitors to the area,” says Cheryl Pierce, head of performing arts and learning at Creative Folkestone.

Focusing on the physical elements of landscape, the festival will look back to the “chalk beds built up over 30

▲ Folkestone's Warren will be the location of several festival events

million years and the time when the two landmasses within the geopark boundary were one – prior to the megaflood 10,000 years ago that broke them apart,” explains Diane Dever, co-founder and director of Folkestone Fringe. Of course, this all links back to how people today experience and interact with the shared geology they still have. Through their work, the artists are tasked with “getting people to really feel and care, because if there isn’t a public audience for a geopark, there won’t be Unesco status,” says Dever.

The activities and events will aim to “expand the audience for landscape” beyond the more traditional users such as ramblers and walkers or people who are interested professionally, Pierce explains.

Taking place in and around Folkestone, the festival will run over the weekend of Friday 23 September, coinciding with the autumn equinox.

The festival team has commissioned a group of core artists whose work is rooted in the local environment. Artists and artist collectives taking part include Judith Anketell, Dr Legumes, Craig Gell, Rubiane Maia, Alison Neighbour, Origins Untold (Josie Carter and Aida Silvestri), SHAPE (Anne Deeming), SITE (Ash McNaughton, Helen Davison and Selina Bonelli), Trickster Trailer (Fiorino and Ferreria), Sara Trillo and Manuel Vason.

Festival-goers will enjoy a programme of walks and talks in response to the unique geopark habitats of chalk, clay,

wetlands and woodlands viewed from both land and sea. Expect events, performances and interactions at the Quarterhouse, Urban Room, local beaches and outdoor areas. Previous festivals have featured activities from swimming and drawing to gardening and foraging. The festival will also host a mobile gallery visiting local schools for workshops and other community actions around the geopark area. Look out for more details from Creative Folkestone, Folkestone Fringe and Kent Downs AONB later this summer!

folkestonefringe.com creativefolkestone.org.uk kentdowns.org.uk

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A love of and curiosity about buildings and their past owners combine in Simon Warren’s blue plaques honouring “the fabric of society” Unless you live in a new-build, your home will have a history. In Folkestone, where many properties were constructed well over 150 years ago, that history can be a fascinating one. Seeking to shine a light on and celebrate that past, Here Before Us tailor-makes blue plaques detailing the frequently surprising and sometimes extraordinary lives of the buildings that line our streets and the people who lived in them.

This Folkestone-based business is the brainchild of Simon Warren. Since launching in November 2020, he has installed over 125 of his blue plaques in 15 locations, and counting, across the UK as far afield as Ramsgate and Southport. Sitting outside Streep Street Café on the Old High Street – a thoroughfare where many shops now sport blue Here Before Us plaques in their windows – Simon shares how he came up with the concept.

“I was inspired by Street of Blue Plaques,” he says, referencing a 2011 art installation and social history project in Walthamstow, where Simon lived before moving to Folkestone in 2020. Those blue plaques, however, were cut out of paper.

For Here Before Us, Simon has sought to create something that is more durable.

In Manchester he found a company that could create vinyl plaques that can easily be applied, moved and reapplied, inside a front

ADVERTORIAL

31

window. There is also the option to have the plaque printed on Foamex (a PVC foam board) which does not need framing and mounts directly to any wall.

When it comes to researching the text for the plaques, “it’s not a 10 minute process,” stresses Simon. In addition to mining online information sources, such as censuses from 1841 to 1921, the 1939 ID card register and Ancestry.com, Simon uses rare sets of old business and home listing directories such as those published by Kelly’s, Pikes and Parsons in the early 20th century. “I spend a minimum of two hours triple-checking details and, if I go down a rabbit hole, that can easily stretch to five.”

Evidence of the care and attention Simon takes in researching the past lives of properties is apparent in the facts that he unearths. Among his favourite Folkestone discoveries are that the Happy Skate shop at the corner of Tontine Street was once the location of the haberdashery business owned by R G Wood, a former mayor; that the aide de camp of Queen Victoria once lived on Sandgate Road; and that in 1901 Sophie Jane Fisher (Sister Muriel) ran an orphanage on Wear Bay Road.

What makes these memorials to non-famous people so fascinating is that they provide an intriguing window into a broad array of historical professions and businesses – from a colliery agent and milliner to curiosity shopkeeper and sawmill saw sharpener. The glowing testimonials on the Here Before Us website are evidence of how delighted Simon’s clients are in the finished product which – if you live in Folkestone – he will personally hand-deliver and install.

herebeforeus.co.uk

32

INTERIORS

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perfectly imperfect Writer Kerry Ryan

Photography Charlotte Bland

Meet the wonder woman behind Côte de Folk, a Folkestone-based interior design practice with an international reputation

“

When I think of how young the business is, it’s remarkable,” says Sophie Rowell. Remarkable but not surprising after you’ve spent time in the company of House and Garden’s rising star of 2022. Her passion and grit is clear for all to see.

Sophie is known for creating elegant and original interior magic, masterminded from her new studio in the Cabins, at the heart of Folkestone’s Creative Quarter. When Covid hit, instead of pulling down the shutters, Sophie shifted to offering remote consultations – a move that’s proven extremely popular and in line with her commitment to accessible design.

Home is a four-storey Georgian townhouse in the Bayle with whitebeamed ceilings and sea views. It was renovating this almost derelict property into the delight it is today that helped Sophie take the leap from a 25-year career in fashion to the world of interiors – a seat-of-the-pants gamble that has paid off in spades. Côte de Folk is now in high demand all over the world and Sophie’s latest commission has her flying all the way to Miami’s silver shores.

“Interior design should never be just for the select few. People think they need to get the whole house done but that’s not the case at alI. Yes, I do large projects for hospitality and residential but I can also consult on just one room or two. I also offer one-off in-person consultations for those at the beginning of a building project or right at the end when they’ve hit a wall and need guidance. Or with my remote consultations, you get the help and advice you need but it’s not a hugely

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INTERIORS

expensive commitment.”

Sophie’s signature style includes vintage linens, ticking stripes and antiques picked up at fairs, auctions and car boot sales for a song. Her design ethos marries her passion for sustainability with the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi – the appreciation of beauty in imperfection.

“If something is too perfect, I don’t like it. I prefer the patina of age. I like objects that tell a story and I like to use what the client already has. I like to breathe life into old things. It’s lasted a hundred years so why not salvage it and make it last another hundred years?”

A sofa she rescued from a sure-fire future as landfill became Instagram famous after Sophie transformed it using vintage stripes, including a silk kimono belt a friend had given her. Another of her reupholstered sofas – again with contrasting stripes – was recently featured in Vogue. You can spy these beautiful projects and more on Sophie’s Instagram feed where every post is a feast for the eyes.

Among Sophie’s favourite Folkestone projects is the Turret, a run-down flat that she transformed into a wow holiday let with panoramic views of the Channel and St Eanswythe’s church next door. The three-foot wide, 38-step spiral staircase meant all the furniture was constructed on site. Despite the

sweat it took to turn the space into an in-demand pied-à-terre, the Turret remains a favourite. “This was such an exciting project because the client gave me complete freedom to do whatever I wanted,” Sophie says.

For her partner David Holden, Sophie created a space that vies with the Turret for the coolest place to stay in Folkestone. A 1956 Citroen HY van was shipped over from Paris and converted into an Airbnb (@tps_overnight) in the backyard of David’s period property.

The derelict outside loo became a walkin shower and the shed became a bespoke kitchen. The interior is now a wood-panelled luxe space with cool linens, antique art and a bed that guarantees sweet dreams. “Working with such a small space was a challenge,” Sophie says. “But I love problem-solving and I’m so pleased with the end result.

People love staying there. There have been two engagements already!”

Sophie also assisted David on creating the Potting Shed (@tpsfolkestone). By day this Rendezvous Street address sells antique furniture and handmade homewares, while at night it morphs into TPS, a 1930s secret speakeasy cocktail bar. As Sophie says, “This really is one to experience first-hand.”

cotedefolk.com @cotedefolk

Jonathan Burlow Architects

+44 7447949626 Studio@jonathanburlow.co.uk www.jonathanburlow.co.uk

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ART

Conversations Between Creatives Photographer Simon Richmond

Kicking off a series of dialogues between local creatives are Kate Knight and Robert Buchanan, both of whom make beautiful images with biro

T

he Foghorn brought Kate and Robert together at Kate’s studio on Tontine Street to chat about their artistic roots, swap notes about their creative practices and “geek out” about paper stock.

Kate: How did you come to art?

Rob: I've been a professional artist

for about two years. Before that I was a ski instructor … but I snapped my Achilles heel in France in February 2020. I came back to the UK for rehab, then coronavirus kicked off and that kept me here.

Kate: What inspired you then to pick up the pen?

Rob: I was always into art as a kid,

went to art college for a year, but was very aware of the fact that I wasn't an academic. The ski industry taught me not to compromise on what I want to do … Skiing was my passion for 14 years, but prior to that art was. I was stuck living with my parents for the first time in my adult life, so I just started drawing, posted a couple of things up on Facebook – pet portraits and stuff like that – and got positive responses and a few commissions. It kind of snowballed from there.

Kate: Similar to you, I come from like a

physical background. When I was three, I started dance classes. I went off to dance school in London when I was 17 and trained to be a ballet dancer. I had a

bit of a hard time at school, bullying and stuff like that … I worked really hard at dance because I saw that as my escape from school life. When I didn't have that to fight up against, I didn't have to dance as hard. My passion for it started to wane.

My boyfriend at the time took me to my first ever gallery at 19. It was the National Gallery and as soon as I saw the paintings, I thought, this is what I want to be. I want to be a painter. I was filled with so much awe and inspiration.

I went back to my mum and dad said, I’ve given up dance. And they were like, you are not – you have to work for a year in dance. Honestly, it was the best year, but I just knew I didn't want to dance. I’d just got that passion for art and that was it – hooked.

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Rob: I think it was the right thing to do, though … You got it out of your system.

Kate: Dance was a long journey. It's a

lot of your childhood spent being really disciplined and that's what you need for art.If you want to be a successful artist, you've got to have dedication, create every day. You've got to put that work in.

It's the ritual as well, the exercise that’s really important … It's not easy – it's feast and famine, sometimes.

Rob: Like all the crops die over winter and then spring you’re trying to get everything together.

Kate: How did you end up in Folkestone?

Rob: When I came back to the UK from

ski instructing, I moved in with my parents in Littlestone. I didn't really know anyone there. Met my girlfriend on a dating app … She was living in Folkestone and was part of the Creative Quarter already. I didn't even know the Creative Quarter existed! There's literally nowhere better for a young artists to find themselves than in a really great creative community.

You also get those nice surprises where you didn't think that colour was going to happen … But it's harder with biro because you can't really make mistakes.

Rob: It’s unforgiving. With

graphite and charcoal, you can put it on the page. You can move it around.

You can lift it up. You can't do that with Biro. But … because it's so unforgiving, you're more deliberate with everything that you do. I can see it evolve as I'm doing the picture and you'll see sections come along and you start to feel really good about it.

Whereas with graphite and charcoal, I always go through a rollercoaster of emotions – one minute I hate it, one minute I love it.

Kate: It’s because they're mediums that

won't behave themselves. Biro is such a tight process. It behaves itself. You know where it's going to go. The only thing that's failing it is you.

Rob: I grew up with two pet cats

and I love cats. And I've always been very aware of our relationship with animals. We don't really treat them as equal inhabitants of our planet.

We use them as a resource, really.

When I think of a piece that I want to do, I pick a subject and portray them in as much of their natural beauty as possible by getting as much detail in as possible. The conservation theme can be overwhelming for a lot of people if you're shoving it down their throat. A lot of people are aware of it, but they constantly need to be reminded of how compassionate some of these animals can be and how human-like.

Kate: I started to paint an animal

because it was a representation of my dad's last breath. I painted this dying bull. It was life-size, in oil, on a massive oval canvas. And it was the idea of that

35

silent strength that had gone out of our lives. You didn't realise how strong that person was until they're no longer present. So I started to use animals as a stand-in for that emotional content and then it became still life, more Dutch style, because they’re dead animals. But death doesn’t tend to sell … so I made the animals alive and I started to paint birds and clouded leopards … They’ve got the most beautiful pattern on them. I love the challenge of that pattern. Their faces are so sculptural as well. And who doesn’t love drawing a flower? It’s such sumptuousness and abundance.

And then you've got the little squirrel monkeys … They’re just mischievous and fantastic to draw with their little wispy ears.

Rob: Butterflies as well…

Kate: Yes nymph butterflies … And

a little caterpillar that is just peeking around the frame. There's also showmanship, I think, to what we both do, because with this sort of work you're showing off … It’s like performing.

Rob: Exactly. I was never academic, but

things without being overly exposed …

You can make quite a lot of mistakes, and still get away with it as well.

in art lessons I felt like I was the top of the class. You feel like you're performing when you're drawing a picture, but you don't want to show anyone until it's done and you're proud of it.

Rob: It was my first time selling my

Rob: So what’s on the horizon for you?

Kate: It’s a good playground to test out

work. I really knew nothing about art apart from the fact that I liked drawing with pencil. I hadn't even started with biro at that point. So it was very experimental for me.

What sort of materials do you use?

Kate: I'm a real alchemist ... I love

making things from scratch. It goes back to craft and women in craft, and how a woman who can make things is empowered and has an income. I started using biros because I wanted to practise my etching skills. The biro’s a fine point, you can cross hatch with it.

People look at my work and say “That’s biro?” And they’re astounded. That’s part of it … How you take this grittylike medium and transform it. It's like carbon. It’s dark, it gets sticky … It's like a magical wand, what you do with it.

It's a real labour of love as well, because it's really taxing on the arm.

It's a very mechanical process and it's multi-layered. It takes me ages to do these pieces because each flower has six colours in them. It’s also a layering process, knowing if you put this colour under that colour, this will happen.

Why are you drawn to animals?

ART

Kate: I’m curating a show of seven

female artists I really admire, called On Gossip and the Glamour at the Touchbase Gallery in September. It's about reappropriation of those words, because back in the day, gossip was a group of women who would come together and they would learn each other's crafts. Glamour is an old Scottish word and it was a spell that could be cast to make something look ugly or beautiful.

What are you up to?

Rob: I’m taking over a two-level space

on Tontine St and starting a gallery …

I want to support local artists and craft makers. There’s a lot of pop-up spaces, which is fantastic, but there's no big galleries in Folkestone where young artists, like myself, can have a platform to sell their work.

kateknightartist.com kateknightillustration.com @kateknightpainter rbvisuals.co.uk @r.buchanan.art

36

folkestone foghorn

ART

shows to go to Check out the season’s shows at these local galleries

THE STABLES

TOUCHBASE GALLERY Jon Law: Rasterwork

SORAIA ANDERSEN @clare_hamilton_design

Carlie Curnow: Wild

The Lisbon-born artist is opening her studio to visitors where you can view originals from her I Am Patchwork and Otherness series of paintings, drawings and collages featuring multi-layered frames within frames and circles within circles. Andersen also applies her polychromatic images to homewares, including cups, cushion covers, placemats and coasters, all for sale at the studio.

24 to 30 August Wildlife inspired images. facebook.com/carliecurnowartist @curnowcarlie

Studio 1, 2-4 South Street soraiaandersen.com @soraia_andersen

29 to 31 July Colourful abstract oil paintings. jon-law.co.uk @rstrwrk

Liam & Emily Barden: Wind-swept Spirit 9 to 16 August Metapictoral, transcendental oil. and acrylic paintings.

summer wishlist Curated by Rachel Doyle @rachelmelissadoyle Azul, £32.95 Chaos Cards | @chaoscards_folkestone Fun and strategic game with stylised board and pieces for 2-4 players.

Explore chaos cards for strategy and puzzle board games.

Touchbase Members’ Exhibition 13 to 20 September Group show of works by members of Touchbase Care.

Jeffrey Louis Reed aka Disastronaut 21 to 27 September flowcode.com/page/jeffreylouisreed @jeffreylouisreed

On Gossip and the Glamour Deborah Crofts: Self-Reflection 22 to 31 July Acrylic paintings to coincide with Folkestone Pride. deborahcrofts.com @deborahcroftsart

Dee Taylor: Clouds 8 to 15 August A new series of oil paintings inspired by ever changing skies of the Romney Marsh. @dee.taylormade

Paul Robinson: Sink Into Art 19 August to 3 September Colourful, abstract photographs.

Mike Perry 4 to 15 September A retrospective of Perry’s highly detailed 3D models that capture a personal moment in time. @thefolkestoneminiaturist

James Roberts 16 to 30 September Series of landscape photographs.

Black Art Month 1 to 31 October Collection of shows from Black and African diaspora artists.

35-37 Tontine Street @the_stables_artgallery

29 September to 2 October Group exhibition curated by Kate Knight with work by Sian Costello, Ana Kazaroff, Kate Knight, Sonia McDuff, Kelly Sweeney, Sara Trillo and Twinkle Troughton.

15 Tontine Street touchbasecare.org/ touchbase-gallery @touchbasegallery

THE WOODSHED STUDIO & GALLERY Summer Show 11am to 4pm Fridays and Saturdays until 27 August Amanda Wood and Jon O’Connor built the Woodshed on the site of the old slaughterhouse in the historic Bayle. Resident artists Wood and Clare Hamilton share their latest paintings, prints, ceramics and sculptures throughout the summer. Work by other notable local artists is also on display.

The Bayle Steps, off the Old High Street thewoodshed.online @thewoodshed_folkestone

Musango jug, £40 Moda Folkestone @modafolkestone

FOURTH WALL FOLKESTONE

Handmade ceramic jug perfect for summer punch and doubles as a flower vase.

The eclectic Moda shop offers an array of colourful items and gifts for the home.

Sarah Carpenter’s open studio, non-traditional gallery and retail space; keep an eye on her social media for upcoming talks, workshops and events connecting like-minded humans.

Carpenter also runs Collage Club, a social event at the Beer Shop, 32 Rendezvous Street, held on the third Wednesday of the month.

For the Love of Artists: Mental health and the Artistic Process 8 to 31 August A photographic exhibition by Gem offering insight into why artists create. alpinemoonphotography.co.uk @alpinemoon_photography

48 The Old High Street fourthwallfolkestone.co.uk @FourthWallFolkestone

Summer garden lampshade, £55 Kitty McCall | @kittymccall Bring summer to your home with the vibrant lampshade handmade in the UK. The shop has a selection of bold prints and homeware designed by Kitty McCall.

folkestone foghorn

SHOPPING

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Printed summer resort shirt, £22 Bounce Vintage @bouncevintage Choose from a variety of handselected colourful vintage summer shirts and embroidered blouses, available in multiple sizes.

Block hoop earrings, £225 Aimee Craddock Jewellery @aimeecraddockjewellery Brutalist and modernist inspired jewellery handcrafted in precious metals and gemstones. Shop the collection at the new store on The Old High Street.

Elemental musk 50ml, £60 Foras | @shopforas

Altruist dermatologist anti-redness and pigmentation SPF50 cream, £12.50 Native Three @native_three Initiated by consultant dermatologist Dr Andrew Birnie, based in Canterbury. Altruist anti-redness moisturiser is fragrance free for sensitive skin and available at Native Three.

Burano Island Italy, A4 print, £16 Zoe May designs, Native Three @native_three Colourful prints of scenic destinations by Zoe May, available at Native Three alongside local Kent artists’ work.

Red wine glass ganz green, £11 The Potting Shed @tpsfolkestone Red wine glasses from House Doctor in a delicate green tone available at the beautifully curated TPS shop and evening speakeasy bar.

Foras curates a range of unique fragrances and works with Alexander Verier, a formulator and perfumer from Kent. The fragrance, skincare and lifestyle store is based in Folkestone.

Organic Chip t-shirt, £15 Moo Like a Monkey | @moolikeamonkey

Folkestone postcards, £1 and novelty pens, £3.50 Objectables | @objectables

Surface Project Cooper sandals, £75 The Lobby | @thelobbyfolkestone

Organic children’s t-shirt, with Chip the seagull hand printed on the front. Sizes from 3-11. Every product sourced for the shop is sustainably and ethically made.

Keep an eye out for Objectables sign boards on The Old High Street and shop a selection of funny and thoughtful greetings cards, quirky stationery, gifts and board games.

The Cooper sandal is made using recycled ocean plastic material on the upper buckles. Shop The Lobby, for a selection of independent and responsible clothing brands for men and women.

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folkestone foghorn

POEM

Fog Writer Sharon McCarron

Illustrator Hannah Davis

The original foghorn bellowed mournfully through the mist from the Harbour Arm from 1904 until the early 2000s – this poem celebrates that lost sound. The illustration was chosen from those submitted by the students of the EDGE School of Creative and Business at Folkestone College

We wake slowly to the sound of The foghorn from the harbour, Poaching us from the warmth of sleep Distant urgent noise Monotone and deep.

White light, Illuminated air Parted by our breath.

A druidic, ancient in its cloak The St Peters bell a rhythmic stroke.

On the cliff path ghosts Nothing physical, a waft of reality when it clears enough To see the edge.

Diffused sounds … klaxons Way out in the channel Mournful ...

Lost souls speaking one to another Of past love The sea lapping – barely there.

Then, Down the steps to the solid foot fall of strangers …

On the cobbles and York flags

The smell of exhaust fumes and Dead fish, thick as the fog.

Voices once carried on the wind stifled, As much by the speaker as the air.

The gulls are quiet, Loud by their absence.

Then a shrill repetitive hale A cacophony of intention Muffled by the horn.

Serving notice of presence, That we are here, on solid ground.

The ferry on the dock is straining Nestled safely in the crook Of the harbour arm The restless child in a giant’s bosom.

Entirely bleached from view Seamen disembark Into the lime-washed day The sound of bottles smashing Alerts the vicar to ‘goings on’.

He cannot see his prize Or the fags being tucked up In the rafters – of platform one.

The 8.35 to Charing Cross via Ashford Pulls out with its own trumpet call Heaving across the bridge, slowly An unseen ancient cavalry’s

Piston driven hooves Clickity clacking As she screeches away For a moment we are all lost …

With sloth the day emerges from limbo The sea glass textured water, Pale green, Redeems the shore from its loneliness.

The sun seducing the fog to give up its secrets Brings yellow warmth Clammy skin, takes on a glow.

As damp mittens are stuffed in pockets The ferry, engines churning sea foam, Lets go the dock And with one last blast Dissolves, melting into drifts.

We’d love to read more – and publish the best – of your creative writing, be it poetry, prose, short story or essay. Email your submission of up to 500 words to simon@ brightsidepublishing.com with “creative writing” in the subject line. All submissions should have a Folkestone connection – if your work is selected for publication we will contact you.

THE TOWER THEATRE

THE TOWER THEATRE F

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Saturday 23 July 7.30pm

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THE FOLKESTONE-HYTHE OPERATIC & DRAMATIC SOCIETY CIO

Saturday 15 October 7.30pm

“An Evening with with support from Sarah-Jane Hassell & Roger Lewin

World Jazz Live Sessions

Thursday 28 July 7.30pm

Roger Hubbard Band with support from Diane Dunn

Thursday 4 August 7.30pm

Dita Garbo

Cameron Claiborne

Anna McNuff” THE FOLKESTONE-HYTHE OPERATIC & DRAMATIC SOCIETY CIO

16 - 17 & 22 - 24 September

a murder play

by Emlyn Williams

Presented by Adventure Lectures

Wednesday 19 October 7.30pm

ain m e J y m m i J and his

sensational band

Friday 21 October 3pm THE NEW FOXTROT SERENADERS present

THE FOLKESTONE-HYTHE OPERATIC & DRAMATIC SOCIETY CIO

Asifa La Hore

Richard Energy

Saturday 20 August 8pm

10 - 12 November 7.30pm

Cinderella Starring Mike Nolan of the FIZZ

Saturday 10 September 7.30pm

Saturday 19 November 7.30pm

Comedy Mash presents..

Felicity Ward Saturday 26 November 8pm

THE FOLKESTONE-HYTHE OPERATIC & DRAMATIC SOCIETY CIO

Saturday 1 October 7.30pm

16 - 29 December

Saturday 25 March 7.30pm

For full details of all our forthcoming shows and to book tickets, please visit towertheatrefolkestone.co.uk or call the box office on 01303 223925 The Tower Theatre, North Road, Shorncliffe, Folkestone CT20 3HL Registered Charity 1180504