Curfew Tea Rooms

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Curfew Tea Rooms

Vintage tea room and garden in an idyllic 17th century home. A traditional English country cottage and garden, serving homemade cakes, scones and more.

Permanently closed.

Curfew Tea Room and Garden

Welcome to Curfew Tea Room and Tea Garden, we hope you enjoy your rest in our old home. We have lived here for many years, with our 2 sons who come and go, our 4 cats, 1 dog, and many fish. Our beautiful cottage and garden have been here since the mid to late 1600s, making it one of the oldest houses in the village, possibly even the oldest. The cottage itself began as

3 much smaller farmers’ cottages but was converted into one home in the 1800s. There is a moving story dated 1696 about our cottage in St Margaret's Church which details the life of a village shepherd who lived here and who fell off the cliff in heavy fog on a very dark night. In his will he bequeathed some money to the Church who, in his honour, decided to use this bequest to ring the Church bell as a curfew in the dark winter nights: hence the cottage eventually became known as Curfew Cottage. You can read this story on a plaque in the village church. During World War 2 the house was shelled directly from France and was badly damaged through the roof. If you sit in the garden you can see where this shell landed by looking at the roof and seeing the difference in the roof tiles. At the right end of the cottage are the original tiles and then the lighter tiles are the replacements fitted after the War. The tiles on the roof over the kitchen were probably hung in the 1950s as this part was originally a post-war single storey extension but it received a first floor sometime later. It is believed that while it was a single storey it was a barber’s shop for a while but we know little about this part of its history. Since we have lived here we have endeavoured to undertake any renovations in a sympathetic manner respectful of its Grade 2 listing and its history. We hope you enjoy your visit to our tea room and come back soon, you are most welcome. Wendy and Keith

June 2015

14/09/2023

I'm not sure I've ever been this excited about something that's going on in Thanet. As an avid book lover, you will for sure be catching me there! Will I see you there?

Bekah

21/10/2017

Hi everyone, even though the Tea Room is closed for the season, we have been busy behind the scenes this morning baking these cakes for the St Margaret's Church Coffee Morning, which starts 10.30am today at the Village Hall.

08/10/2017

We’re providing the refreshments at the St. Margaret’s village Footpath Walk again this year. Happy to be helping the parish council.

06/09/2017

Dear All,
Curfew Tea Room's summer is over as we've decided to close for the season. What a year! It was our third summer and we had more visitors than ever, both locals and from all over the world. For those of you that like this sort of thing, the favourite cake was lemon drizzle, the favourite food was a gammon sandwich on brown, and the favourite drink was English Breakfast Tea. You'd think it was an English Tea Garden!
Many thanks to everyone who visited for the first time, to everyone who came back for another visit, and for all the interesting chats and lovely comments.

For locals, we'll be doing the refreshments for the Parish Council's Footpath Walk in the Village Hall on the 8th of October. Come along and get involved.

Thanks to you all, merci, dank u wel, danke, grazie and every other thank you that we might have missed. See you next year,

Keith and Wendy

20/07/2017

Hello to all you Curfew tea drinkers, coffee lovers and cake eaters, I hope you're all well and happy. I wanted to let you know that Wendy and I are going on a fact-finding tour of the South West to visit as many tea shops in a week as possible. It's a tough job but you have to put the research in if you want to keep your standards up! So we'll be closed this weekend and next while we're away.
See you in a fortnight.
Keith

30/06/2017

Today is National Cream Tea Day. Be a Devil, have one tomorrow instead.

17/06/2017

It's the hottest weekend so far and the dappled sunlight is filling the garden. So to celebrate the lovely weather we have a special Rose Cake just waiting to be eaten.

04/06/2017

Another busy day, with our customers enjoying their Cream Teas in the glorious sunshine. See you all next week.

26/05/2017

We are open tomorrow, which is Saturday 27th May, at 12 until 4 pm. It looks as if it is going to be a lovely weekend. It will be great to see you in the garden.

05/05/2017

Hello everyone, I wanted to share a couple of things with you before the weekend. The first thing is that sadly we'll not be opening now until the next Bank Holiday, the 27th of May. It's just that a lot of family stuff has come up and rather than get cover we've decided to close for the next 3 weekends. The weather will be hotter then, too!

Also, I wanted to show you this piece that's going into the local press soon about a bit of our history. The last piece that went in got a lot of interest so let's hope this does the same.

History Repeating Itself

We’ve all seen high street shops that close down on a Friday and then open up again on the Monday selling more or less the same stuff. But what if that happened in someone’s garden and over 70 years apart? That’s what has happened to a tea room in St Margaret’s.

Wendy Morris, who owns Curfew Tea Rooms in Sea Street St Margaret’s, opened her garden for business two years ago selling English Cream Teas and playing wartime music for her guests. Wendy says, “It’s such an old house and garden that it really lent itself to a vintage theme. Little did I know that I wasn’t the first person to think that!” Wendy attended a local history exhibition at the village hall and among the excellent display put on by the St Margaret’s History Society she found some old newspaper cuttings. Looking for any mention of Curfew Cottage she discovered that back in the 1940s her garden was being used as … a tea room!

Clearly at a time when St Margaret’s was more or less taken over by the army a previous owner of the cottage had also had the idea of offering tea and cake to the weary. Now it’s walkers, then it was soldiers.

Wendy said of the find, “It made the tea room more real somehow. We use vintage china that was around during the war and when we play The Andrews Sisters or Frank Sinatra it feels like they could still be in the charts.” “But I hope the coincidences don’t go too far, she said, because the house was shelled from France during the war and we wouldn’t want that to happen again.” “That would be a hard Brexit!.”

Curfew Tea Room is open every Saturday and Sunday from 12 until 4 and you can spot the artillery damage to the roof as you enjoy your tea and cake.

31/03/2017

It is Official! We have put our banner up outside the Tea Room with our opening date. We are hoping that it will be a warm sunny Bank Holiday weekend, so that all of our lovely customers can sit and enjoy taking Tea in our garden. But, if it is the typical Bank Holiday weekend weather we will have our Tea Room warm and cosy, so that you can all sit indoors in the warmth and enjoy our delicious cakes,or have a tasty light lunch, whilst looking out over the garden. See you all soon.

Address

Dover
CT156AR

Telephone

+447900221472

Website

http://twitter.com/@CurfewTeaRooms

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