Continue reading »]]> One hundred years ago Herne Bay was a buzzing seaside town and the place everyone wanted to visit.  The brand new Kings Hall was about to be opened in July by Queen Victoria’s daughter.  There were already three cinemas, The Grand, The Paragon and the Bijou and live entertainment and theatre at the Pier Theatre, Grand Pier Pavilion and Central Hall.  There were concerts, films, plays, comedy and dances and visitors flocked here to have fun.  This summer the town is hosting numerous events celebrating our golden age.  Come and be part of the celebrations.

Continue reading »]]> A belated happy new year from Bayguide.  2013 looks set to be a really exciting year in the Bay.  We are celebrating a number of anniversaries.  Herne Bay is 180 years old and the Historical Records Society will mount a major exhibition of photographs showing how the town has changed over the years.  In July, The Kings Hall celebrates its centenary with lots of exciting events including a Titanic themed ball.  And Bayguide is organising a festival in August to celebrate the month spent here in 1913 by a great French artist, Marcel Duchamp – see iamnotdead.co.uk for further information.  Other events this year include Sci-Fi by the Sea in June and our annual carnival in August.  Check out our events calendar for full details.

Continue reading »]]> After the excitement of Halloween week, its time to start thinking about Christmas.  Herne Bay’s festive lights will be switched on in Mortimer Street on November 16th – just a week to go.  Stars from the Marlowe pantomime will be here to do the honours at 4pm next Friday.

And there will be Eco Christmas Craft Workshops for children and adults at Beach Creative every Saturday starting on 24th November and continuing until 15th December. From 10.30am-12.30pm at Beach Creative Beach, Beach House, Beach Street, Herne Bay, Kent CT6 5PT www.beachcreativecic.co.uk

There will be four sessions each making a different Christmas decoration using recycled materials. All children must be accompanied by an adult
£5 per child age range 3-16.  To book contact Karen 07525832875 / karentribe@hotmail.com shoreisaloadofrubbish.blogspot.co.uk

At the BAG, The Ct6 Contemporary Art Group are having a Pop-Up Shop from 26th November-8th December.  A great opportunity to buy local affordable art and sort out your Christmas shopping without leaving Herne Bay.

Continue reading »]]> Herne Bay’s independent cinema needs help.  Owner Robert Johnson is updating to digital and wants to boost the box office takings to help pay for the new equipment.  This week the cinema is showing BRAVE, DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: DOG DAYS, TOTAL RECALL and A FEW BEST MEN.  Something for everyone. For more details and times click here

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The Herne Bay Histories exhibition at Beach House has been extended for an extra week until 11th September.  There are some great old photographs of the town as well as rare film footage from the 1920s and when the sea froze in 1963.

Mike Bundock from the Historical Records Society is giving an illustrated talk on Herne Bay’s Church Buildings on Thursday 6th September at the Kings Road Junior School Hall from 7.30. Mike will draw on a range of historical and more recent documents and images to explore the fascinating history of these structures.

Both events are free.

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Local resident, Dylan Hampshire believes that our town would be better served by a Town Council and raised this at the last Herne Bay Area Panel meeting.  Dylan believes a Herne Bay council should be independent from Canterbury and says that he only needs to gather 612 signatures from Heron Ward residents to force the Council to take the proposal to the next stage.  Peter Gander’s latest cartoon for Bayguide is inspired by this story, and by the pirate theme which opens the 20th Herne Bay Festival Parade on Saturday 18th August.  Herne Bay was established as a separate town by Act of Parliament in 1833 and had its own Urban District Council until 1974.  There is more on this story here.

Continue reading »]]> A personal review by Julia O’Dowd.

Where do locals go for good quality dining on a Saturday evening? Other than perhaps the well-established Le Petit Poisson, the choice in Herne Bay up to now has been quite limited and many locals wanting a special evening head for Whitstable or Canterbury.  However, the good news is that Herne Bay seems to be attracting some new eateries one of which is the Oyster and Chop House in the High Street.

We visited this new restaurant on a Saturday night. From the outside the restaurant looked welcoming and atmospheric.  The décor is simple with exposed brickwork and old floorboards. We were greeted by a charming young lady who showed us to our pre-booked table.  The small but ‘well rounded’ menu is on a chalk board on the wall. The evening we dined, the choice included local Monk’s Hill Farm chicken, noisettes of lamb and whole or half lobster ‘cooked anyway you like’. I personally like the concept of a small but well thought out menu as it usually indicates that the chef is choosing quality over quantity ingredients, which we discovered are sourced directly from local farms.

We were offered some complimentary and beautifully presented oysters which my husband said were outstanding (I am not a great lover of oysters). Next came two tasty freshly baked tiny loaves (again complimentary) and straight from the oven.  We skipped starters and went for the mains; my husband ordered lobster and I opted for the lamb noisettes.

While waiting we enjoyed a glass of reasonably priced Pinot Grigio Rose and our water glasses were topped up regularly. When the food arrived it was well presented and looked very promising. It did not disappoint; my lamb was cooked perfectly and, according to hubby, the grilled lobster was the best he had tasted for a long time. Both dishes came with a small selection of fresh seasonal vegetables. I was a little surprised to see one tiny lone carrot with my dish but it tasted fab so all was forgiven.

Having forgone starters, we decided on dessert. The earl grey and raspberry panacotta caught my eye while Kent cheeses enticed my husband. The panacotta was very subtly flavoured and came with raspberries and some interesting bubbles which turned out to be made with uncooked beetroot which was surprisingly sweet. The Kent cheeses were a great success as was the chutney which accompanied them.The Chop House is clearly aiming to bring high quality cuisine to the town and is priced accordingly but the quality and presentation of the food made it excellent value for money. This restaurant only opened this month and if things continue the way it has started it will certainly become a regular venue for us.   All in all a great addition to the town.

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Frank's Cafe by Terry Sole

Terry Sole is one of the artists now working from a new studio at Beach House in Herne Bay.  This year Terry has a picture in the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition in London for the first time in thirty years.  The exhibition continues until 12 August 2012 in the Main Galleries, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London.  Terry spoke to Bayguide about his life and work.

An accountant by profession, Terry has no formal art training, except for two life drawing lessons many years ago.  But he has always drawn and kept his sketch book going for over forty years, documenting places and people during his various travels in the UK and elsewhere.  He has taken his book to Paris and New York and his special interest is recording things that may not last in the changing face of our cities.

Terry’s painting at the Summer Exhibition reflects this interest.  Frank’s Café is near Blackfriars Bridge, London SE1 and is a traditional workman’s café, which has been in the same family for over fifty years.  It is now run by Frank’s son Toni, who liked the picture so much he asked Terry to paint him another one.

The RA’s Summer Exhibition is the world’s largest open submission contemporary art show and is now in its 244th year.  It continues the tradition of showcasing work by both emerging and established artists.  Any artist can submit their work, which is looked at by five Academicians.  If three of them like the piece then it is accepted for the show.  Terry had work accepted in the late 1970s and early 1980s but was too busy for the next thirty years to submit any paintings.  This year the Academy was keen to receive small paintings and Frank’s Café appears amongst them in the Main Gallery.

Terry has been visiting Herne Bay since his childhood in the 1950s.  His first painting of the town was Housebacks, a view from the alley alongside the Divers Arms, leading into Mortimer Street, which was purchased by David Sheppard, the well known English cricketer, shortly before he became the Bishop of Liverpool in 1975.

Terry can be contacted at Beach House, Kings Road, Herne Bay.

Continue reading »]]> On 13 July 1912, George Smith murdered his wife Bessie while she was taking a bath at their home in Herne Bay.  He wanted to get his hands on his wife’s inheritance and for a while he almost got away with it.  After the murder George returned the bath to the shop (Adolphus Hill in the High Street) and asked for his money back.

Herne Bay artist, Peter Gander, has created the cartoon above for bayguide.  Peter graduated from Canterbury College of Art to work in London as an art director. During his commercial art career, which spans over 20 years, he lays claim to having re-designed the Monopoly logo to include ‘Mr Moneybags’; winning an advertising D&AD Yellow pencil award for Spiller’s Dog Food campaign featuring Dougal from The Magic Roundabout and having an award-winning cartoon featured on London’s Underground as well as having his humorous poetry displayed for Londoner’s by Friends of the Earth featured on London’s iconic Routemaster buses.
See Peter’s work at http://petergander.blogspot.co.uk/

One hundred years ago this month, Herne Bay was the scene of a notorious Edwardian murder which would became national news and lead to a sensational trial at the Old Bailey.

Bessie Williams was found dead in her bath at 80 High Street.  (After the street was renumbered in the 1930s the address where the murder took place became 159.) Bessie had made a will 5 days before her death in favour of her husband Henry, by which he benefited from £2579 13s and 7d (about £150,000 today).  When Bessie’s body was discovered Henry was questioned closely by the police, but the doctor who examined her convinced them of his innocence.  At the inquest Dr Frank French testified he believed Bessie had suffered an epileptic fit and the cause of her death had been asphyxia brought about by drowning.  When asked whether the death could be due to anything else Dr French replied, “I have no reason to suspect any other cause than drowning.”  The jury did not ask for a post mortem and returned a verdict of death by misadventure.

But Henry Williams was far from innocent and this was not even his real name, which was George Joseph Smith.  He had married Bessie Mundy a few months earlier with the intention of getting hold of her inheritance.  When the couple moved in the property did not have a bathroom so Henry installed a temporary bath in a spare room upstairs, which he ordered from Adolphus Hill, an ironmongers in the High Street. But he never actually paid for it and after he had murdered his wife he took it back to the shop.
Read how George was finally caught at www.bayguide.co.uk http://bayguide.co.uk/wp/index.php/the-brides-in-bath

Continue reading »]]> On Saturday 7th July a new Arts Venue will open in Herne Bay.  Beach House is on the corner of Beach Street and Kings Road, CT6 5PT, and will be holding an Open Day from 10am till 8pm.  The building provides artists studios, exhibition spaces, meeting rooms and workshops for local artists to meet, work, network, share and learn.  The opening exhibition shows the work of students from Herne Bay High School.

Beach Creative is a non-for-profit community interest company and aims to support and enable the development of creative industries in the Herne Bay district. Part of this will be to increase opportunities for the community to develop their creative skills and participate in the arts, locally, nationally and – hopefully – internationally. Gill Wilson, Access and Outreach co-ordinator at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) in Canterbury, initiated the project as part of the university’s mission ‘to excel as a university for the arts which fosters creativity through local connections and global aspirations’. Gill was looking for an empty building to use as workshop space during the academic year and was offered Beach House by Canterbury City Council on a short-term lease. Local artists Mandy Broughton and Mandy Troughton soon joined Gill and, together, they formed the community interest company in response to their collective vision for a designated arts centre in Herne Bay.

The first exhibition to be shown in the gallery spaces is the Herne Bay High School (HBHS) Sixth Form show, sponsored by UCA. Both institutions are members of the Kent and Medway Progression Federation (KMPF), which has continued the work of Aim higher throughout Kent and Medway. Students from both UCA and Herne Bay High School have volunteered, along with local residents, to help transform Beach House into a fit-for-purpose arts venue.

Throughout Saturday 7th July there will be opportunities for the visiting public to view the exhibition, see the artists’ studios and take part in workshop activities provided by the University for the Creative Arts. For information on this and other activities, please contact: Gill Wilson, gwilson@ucreative.ac.uk or phone 07545 787955.