The Keeper of The Nayland Rock Hotel

One of the first things you see when you come out of Margate station is The Nayland Rock Hotel. When it was built in 1885, it quickly became one of the most luxurious destinations on the coast. With its sea views, Victorian splendour and ornate lettering, the building boasts grandeur. From hosting Charlie Chaplin, Mick Jagger, housing asylum seekers, being a film set for numerous films & TV shows or going through a variety of different owners, the hotel slowly started to decline. For 27 years, Carol was the receptionist and then keeper of empty structure when it shut its doors in 2020. She stayed in the vacant building and watched over it as it began decaying. She was the last voice holding onto its secrets and memories. One evening last summer, Amurmur contributor Rachelle Francis (With and Without Diana project) and I were looking for a quiet place to talk amidst the raging noise of a summer evening so we knocked on the door of the big abandoned hotel. And so we met Carol. And so she told us she was leaving The Nayland Rock any time within the next few months and she didn’t know what was going to happen to it. And so I began to film and we asked her questions because we couldn’t stand to imagine the loss of such particular memories within a place so dear to Thanet.

Below is a collage of the recorded conversation as well as some stills of the footage captured a few weeks before her retirement.