Former 'Man Of Kent' Temperance Hotel

This substantial Free-style building, constructed around 1880, served as a coffee tavern before becoming a temperance hotel. It now contains residential flats and a commercial unit. The architect remains unknown.

The building stands nearly double the height of its neighbours, rising five storeys plus two attic levels. Constructed in yellow stock brick with extensive decorative use of red brick and terracotta, the design demonstrates considerable architectural ambition. A six-storey rear extension projects to the west, topped with a pyramidal roof, whilst a massive chimney stack bearing fifteen pots rises to the north.

The front elevation presents a striking composition, with each storey treated differently but unified through decorative cut red brick and terracotta cornices. The second and third floors are expressed as a giant order arcade with four recessed bays between pilasters. Third-floor windows feature semi-circular heads with pronounced keystones, whilst the spandrels between window heads and the aprons beneath display terracotta tiles bearing floral motifs in bas-relief.

The first floor comprises a central full-height tripartite window divided by corniced piers supporting an entablature inscribed 'THE MAN OF KENT'. Two flanking windows each have curved cast-iron balconettes. Windows throughout the front elevation are one-over-one timber sliding sashes, except at attic level where they become four-over-one sliding sashes.

The roof meets parapets to north and south, whilst to the front it adopts a canted, mansard-like form covered in slate. The main attic storey is lit by roof dormers and a central two-storey Dutch-gabled dormer rising from the wall-head cornice. The words 'TEMPERANCE HOTEL' were painted on the south flank elevation but are now barely legible.

The ground floor presents particularly elaborate decoration. Doors to left and right flank a central shop window. Both doorways have semicircular heads springing from pilasters with foliate capitals. The spandrels contain colourful and richly decorative ceramic tiles depicting a Japanese lady to one side and a Chinese man to the other. The tiles over the left-hand door almost exactly mirror those over the right-hand door. Semi-circular fanlights of coloured leaded glass fill the arched head of each doorway. Both doors comprise paired timber multi-panelled doors of late 20th-century date.

The pilaster shafts flanking the left-hand doorway display panels of tiles depicting an elongated rose bush growing from a jardinière. On the right-hand doorway, the pilaster shafts are covered with blackboards, though matching tiles may survive beneath. The central shop window divides into three lights by slender timber mullions, with a horizontal transom creating three fanlights, each glazed in coloured leaded glass. The stall-riser is of rendered masonry.

The building first appears in a Margate directory in 1883 as a coffee tavern, listed the following year under the slightly grander name 'Man of Kent Temperance Hotel'. By 1895, it had ceased its temperance-related use and subsequently housed various commercial and residential occupants.

The building exemplifies the architectural response to the Temperance Movement, which emerged in Britain in the late 1820s. The first English temperance society was founded in Bradford in 1830, initially opposing only spirits whilst condoning moderate drinking. By the late 1830s, the movement had adopted more vehement positions, accepting only total abstinence. This created demand for buildings where societies could meet for social and educational gatherings, providing entertainment, improving activities and refreshment in teetotal environments.

Various building types emerged: temperance halls, temperance hotels, and coffee houses or taverns, often with overlapping functions. These establishments might offer reading rooms, libraries, dining rooms, games rooms, bars selling non-alcoholic drinks, and overnight accommodation. The term 'hotel' may have indicated available rooms for teetotal travellers, though it also described upmarket coffee houses.

Coffee taverns frequently mimicked the appearance of public houses, attempting to present a credible alternative. The 'Man of Kent' emulates the flamboyance of late Victorian 'gin-palaces', using coloured glass, terracotta and tilework to elaborate effect.

The tilework is believed to have been manufactured by Maw and Company, one of the principal tile manufacturers of the late 19th century. The floral tiles appear in Maw and Company catalogues of the 1880s. The figurative tiles are attributed to Owen Gibbons, a ceramic designer who assisted on interior schemes for the Victoria and Albert Museum in Kensington, London, before becoming Headmaster of Coalbrookdale School of Art in Shropshire. He worked as a freelance designer for Maw and Company, creating numerous small tile panels featuring Japanese ladies in traditional dress, illustrated in their 1880s catalogues.

Coffee taverns sold a wide variety of non-alcoholic beverages, with tea particularly popular. China and Japan, culturally and economically associated with tea, were considered exotic, and Japanese art particularly influenced English and French art of this period. The Japanese lady depicted in the tiles makes and drinks tea: over the left-hand door she holds a small jug on a tray, whilst over the right-hand door she holds a teacup and saucer. The Chinese man, appearing as an exact mirror image over both doors, appears to be a vendor carrying tea chests on a bamboo yoke. These tiles provide rich, visually exciting decoration alongside artistically superior advertising, with imagery cropped in a manner reminiscent of traditional Japanese prints.

Whether or not these panels were unique to this building, they are extremely unusual in their combination of size, subject matter, quality of design and level of survival. The rose and jardinière tiles on the pilasters around the left-hand door represent a standard design from the Maw and Company catalogue of the 1880s, yet constitute the only known extant example of this particular design, surviving in good condition.