One of the delights of our job is the places we visit and so any excuse to go to Ramsgate to work on a house that evokes this ancient seaport is fine by us.

Jane Austen often visited her brother Captain Austen here and you can imagine her walking along Nelson Crescent. She loved this charming coastal town and it is in Ramsgate that 15-year-old Georgiana Darcy was nearly seduced by libertine Mr Wickham in Pride and Prejudice.

This Grade-II listed house would have been around at that time. Who knows, perhaps Austen even visited it. Built at the beginning of the C19 it overlooks Ramsgate Harbour and has been renovated to bring modern living standards to the home while respecting its Georgian sensibilities.

Like Jane Austen it has had a modern thought process applied to historical bones.

Rather than create a museum with heavy references to the C19 we mixed antique, modern and midcentury to make it the kind of home you would expect to see being enjoyed by modern families today. Lighting was provided by the developer.

Modern artwork was provided by artist Gina Cross.

Cross can be found at Studio Cross here .

Overlooking Ramsgate Harbour, which was built as a result of the Great Storm of 1703, Nelson Crescent was constructed during a time of great patriotism brought about by the Napoleonic Wars which Captain Austen was very much a part of. Back then tens of thousands of troops moved through the harbour to take part in overseas battles.

In the later Regency Era, George IV bestowed the ‘Royal’ on Ramsgate harbour. Part of the Confederation of Cinque Ports, a historic group of coastal towns in south-east England that was originally formed for military and trade purposes, it is the only harbour in the country to receive such an honour.

 

Queen Victoria stayed at the Royal Albion Hotel just around the corner and it’s a great spot for a working lunch.

Although we had little time to visit the pier or the famous Italianate gardens, staging rooms with a sea view when you live in London is a joy. It was Vincent Van Gogh who said “this town has something very singular, one notices the sea in everything” when he lived and worked as a teacher in the town for a year in 1876.

See Nelson Crescent on Inigo

Photographer  Sarah Rainer  

Photos c Inigo