Sheer heaven - behind the doors of King Street’s famous haberdashery

Sheer heaven

Writer Sean Farrell

Photographer Eleanor Marriott

From Vivienne Westwood fabrics to kitting out a Girls Aloud tour, Ramsgate’s King Street haberdashery pulls in customers from as far away as Scotland, and it all started with a market stall. The Ramsgate Recorder takes you inside a world of ribbons and gingham - and a wall of buttons

From its beginnings as a market stall to supplying materials for Downton Abbey and a Girls Aloud tour, The Haberdashery and Fabric Shop has been a treasure trove for textile aficionados for more than 30 years. Enthusiasts, costumiers, artists and other makers head for the King Street store from far and wide, for the family-owned business’s mindboggling array of fabrics, fasteners and other accessories.

Downstairs the haberdashery has a huge range of lace, ribbon, threads and yarns. Upstairs is the fabric shop, which offers a curtain and blind-making service, and is packed with thousands of rolls of material costing no more than £10 a metre. There are more than 30 types of gingham alone.

The highlight, and worth a visit on its own, is the wall of buttons. Metal buttons, nautical buttons, heart-shaped buttons, toggle buttons… Every kind of button. Stretching more than 15 metres, it is probably the biggest button wall in Europe.

When the Recorder visits the shop, owner Doug Chapman serves a steady stream of customers - some regulars and some first-timers, like Suzi Woodgate from Deal. Suzi is after material to make a ginger Highland cow for a friend. Doug helps her find the very fabric and she hands over £2.75, the price kept down by his low minimum purchase of quarter of a metre.

“I do all sorts of crafting,” Suzi says before heading downstairs to find a bell for her cow. “It’s the first time I’ve been in here, but I’ll be back now I know it’s here. This sort of place is a goldmine.” Doug’s dad, also called Douglas, was a market trader in Thanet in the early 1980s. He started specialising in haberdashery as he was buying up stock from textiles factories hit by hard times and international competition. He moved into selling the fabric offered to him at those factories.

Doug Senior and his wife Sandra opened their first shop above a school uniform retailer on King Street in 1986. After five years they moved to bigger premises on Harbour Street, where they traded for 17 years, before splitting the haberdashery and fabric businesses over two shops on King Street and Broad Street.

Four years ago they brought the businesses back together at the current site. In April last year Doug, who is 44 and worked in insurance before joining the family business, took over when his parents retired in their early seventies.

Doug says the business has benefited from the craft boom that has swept the UK and the influx of arty people setting up home or business in Thanet.

“The baby boomers have retired and have thought: ‘What are we going to do?’ And they’ve got the time,” Doug says. “People remember the days when they made clothes and are going back to it. We’ve also got a lot of faithful local customers that we’ve known for years and years.”

One such customer is Christine Bilham, from Westgate, whom Doug is helping with some

“People remember the days when they made clothes and are going back to it”

gingham cloth. She has been making for decades and recently completed her City & Guilds in patchwork and quilting.

“I started making my own clothes when I was younger because it was cheaper and I used to buy the material from Doug [Senior] at the market,” Christine says. “He’s always managed to have good fabric and often end-of-lines from big manufacturers.”

Customers also include creative professionals attracted by low prices and hard-to-find items amassed over the decades. Artists, photographers and set designers come to source materials or simply seek inspiration, with one long-standing customer based in Scotland.

Amanda Rook, the store’s manager, says they have supplied lace for costumes in Downton Abbey, fringes for Girls Aloud’s backing dancers and fabric used to decorate Canterbury Cathedral. Turner Contemporary is also a regular customer, for materials used in children’s workshops and other

requirements, including decking out Paula, the gallery’s lifesize polar bear puppet, for Margate Pride in 2018.

Amanda has worked at the business for 25 years. But after shifting the store’s vast stock three times in that period she says: “I’m not staying if there’s another move!”

Shelly Goldsmith, a leading textile artist and lecturer, has sourced most of her materials from the haberdashery since moving to Ramsgate 13 years ago. Her finds have included Vivienne Westwood fabric and moquette created by industrial textile designer Marianne Straub for the London Underground. Shelly used braids from the haberdashery for a piece commissioned for the Victoria & Albert Museum’s 150th anniversary last year.

“There are a couple of amazing haberdashers in London but they are much more expensive and they haven’t got that archival feel,” Shelly says. “It’s so eclectic. It’s an absolute treasure.”

As well as buying from regular suppliers, Doug continues to pick up excess stock from factories at the right price, including from a sports shirt manufacturer that closed in Deal a few years ago. He reckons he may still sell products his dad bought in the early days. He points out a green fabric with red squares that a customer told him was used to cover the seats |of phased-out slam-door commuter trains.

Lack of merchandise isn’t a problem though. The Broad Street site, which doubled as a warehouse, is still full to the rafters with stock, including 50,000 rolls of two-inch elastic. Doug says he will probably sell much of this elsewhere and is considering opening another shop outside Kent.

“We just need enough to keep us going for the next 20 years,” he says. That’s good news for makers in the know who can continue to visit on the lookout for inspiration and the unexpected.

Party of one

Brunch at The Falstaff

Writer Laura Nickoll

The arrival of February can mean just one thing: Valentine’s Day is on the way, and with it the onset of couples occupying every restaurant table in town. But with solo dining on the rise, here’s a round-up of where to take yourself on a hot date in Ramsgate

Archive (courtesy of Sarah Fennell) Cocktail at Zest (courtesy of Sarah Fennell)

The pleasure principle dictates that to enjoy eating out we should do it with others, but must eating out be a social act? Conventional wisdom might subscribe to this idea, but sometimes the best company is your own.

Some of my most enjoyable meals have been eaten solo: grabbing a stool at a seafood restaurant and devouring a platter of oysters; ordering a succession of small plates at a tapas bar and sipping a cold glass of Albariño with my head in a favourite book; eating pie and mash in a cosy pub nook with the weekend papers; or slurping a bowl of noodles while catching up on food podcasts. It’s liberating: you’ve only yourself to please, you can daydream or people-watch to your heart’s delight, you order whatever you want, and you don’t have to wash the dishes. What’s not to love?

Solo dining is on the increase, restaurants are more welcoming to tables-for-one than ever, and Ramsgate has more than its fair share of counter seating, bars and window seats where you can relish solitary sustenance - whether you prefer a lavish lunch, crave a quick snack, or fancy a simple supper and just can’t be bothered to cook.

Sushi at Kyoto Sushi and Grill

Royal Harbour Brasserie

Sit at the bar or grab a stool (they’ve recently added more bar-eating space) for some happiness in the half-shell - a glass of local stout is the ideal companion - or one of many local seafood dishes.

Peter’s Fish Factory

Order fish and chips and head to the beach to watch the sunset.

Flavours by Kumar

A great place for an early supper: maybe a selection of starters, or go all in and order the pungent, signature black-spiced pork curry.

Kyoto Sushi and Grill

Go for saki or jasmine tea and a plate of sushi or sashimi, a bento box or the “Kyoto lunch”.

Townley’s

Go to town on a classy plate of scallops, their “mini fry” (expect discerningly-sourced produce), open crab sandwich or a solo brunch.

Ravensgate Arms

Sit at the bar downstairs and graze on anything you fancy from Arya’s smallplates menu. Maybe ox cheek gnocchi, a plate of grilled padron peppers or the delectable Snickers pud (I’d go for all three).

Archive

Order Swedish meatballs (these aren’t for sharing), the generous scrambled eggs with sourdough, or a sweet fix and decent flat white. All-day brunch is served from 9:30am, lunch specials from midday, and there’s a lovely selection of soups, salads and tarts. (Note: menu is limited on Tuesdays.)

Zest Café

Nab the warm spot by the window (there’s a heater under the bench) and order the spirit-rousing all-day breakfast (the vegan version is great) or stacked burger.

The Falstaff

The perfect place to stop for breakfast, brunch or lunch (from 7:30am Monday to Saturday, 8am Sunday) when you’re craving a moment of calm and more than just a refuel. For sore heads, ordering the “green scene” or “chunky monkey” smoothie is a no-brainer.

Thai Passion

Pull up a stool at the noodle bar and order handmade wontons or a generous plate of pad Thai.

Little Ships

The bistro-style seating at Little Ships is an ideal set-up for solo dining, and food is available all day.

The Empire Rooms

Sit in the lovely little bar area, where you can order anything from the seasonal menu, maybe the chorizo Scotch egg or a comforting plate of roast pumpkin with lentils and celeriac purée.

Wednesday- 1830- 2100 Thursday- 1830- 2100 Friday- 1830- 2100 Saturday- 1200-1500 and 1830-2100

Above The Ravensgate Arms King Street Ramsgate

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