Work Starts on The Royal Victoria Pavilion in Ramsgate

As you can see from the picture taken yesterday the scaffolding is going up, my understanding is that the work is to be external only and is the result of an agreement reached between Thanet District Council the owner and The Rank Organisation the leaseholder.

I believe the lease was granted to the Pleasurama Organisation and that they moved their “Tiberius” casino there from where it was housed between The Marina Swimming Pool and Marian Esplanade into the western end of the pavilion and opened an amusement arcade “Stardust” in the western end.

At some point the lease was transferred to Rank Organisation who operated the casino until it closed and moved to Westwood Cross, I think this was late in 2007 or early in 2008.

If you look at the picture above of the pavilion in its former glory you can see some bits are missing most noticeably the domed porch and the windows in the arched roof.

Now I am not certain at what point the windows were removed but I am certain that the porch was removed after the building was listed and while the building was leased as a casino.

What I am completely uncertain of is if the work will reinstate the outside of this listed building to how it was and looked, or if this is just urgent weatherproofing to stop further deterioration.

The damage to the structure that has been caused by years of neglect that has lead to water getting into the iron framed structure, causing the iron to rust badly, which in tern lead to expansion inside the concrete that covered much of the iron frame, causing it to crack.

This process is called spalling, the cracks mean more water gets in causing more rust that enlarges the cracks, it is difficult to remediate effectively and it may be several years after the work is done, before it is certain that the problem has properly stabilised.

Speaking here with my engineer’s hat on instead of looking at it from a historical preservation point of view I think the pavilion is probably beyond economic preservation.

The picture above shows a very high tide, fortunately we don’t get these very often and mostly we get them on a calm day, like the day the picture was taken. I suppose pretty much anyone who has lived by the sea for a while can imagine what happens on the rare occasions when a very high tide is combined with a major storm.

Since the pavilion was built in 1903-4 it has been engulfed by the sea on several occasions, causing damage and flooding and I think that it is likely that at some time in the future a storm will cause all or part of it to collapse.