The Home Front Tea Room
13a King Street, Ramsgate, Kent CT11 8NN
40stearoom.co.uk • +44 1843 594383
The Home Front Tearoom, just a short walk from Ramsgate’s harbour, is a heartwarmingly faithful recreation of the ’40s style of Britain’s war years. In 1940, hundreds of little ships set sail from Ramsgate to rescue British troops stranded and under attack on the French beaches at Dunkirk. One yacht, the Sundowner, brought back 130 men and is today a floating exhibit at Ramsgate Maritime Museum on the quayside of the Royal Harbour, around the corner from the tearoom. During those days of austerity and hardship, a strong community spirit and a make-the-best-of-things attitude helped the town through heavy bombing, rationing, severe shortages, and family disruptions. Shared cups of tea brought comfort to so many, and the same sense of neighbourliness and friendship runs through this reassuring, kindly tearoom. It wraps you up in a feeling of cheery welcome and comfort and offers the simple foods and drinks that would have been available all those years ago.
The room is beautifully styled with original furniture, touches of Art Deco, framed sheet music of popular ’40s songs, china ducks in flight on the wall, a Bakelite radio that plays favourite big band numbers, an original black-and-white television that plays silently in the background, a coat rack with gentlemen’s hats and coats, Union flag bunting, and an original ’40s brush and pan for sweeping up the crumbs. Even the light switches are genuine originals, and the staff all wear 1940s pinafores. The lovingly crafted menu lists wartime staples such as Spam and corned beef sandwiches; pilchards on toast; jelly and tinned peaches with ice cream, evaporated milk, or custard; crumpets; and toasted tea cakes. And as well as good old builders’ tea and other loose-leaf teas (no teabags in those days, of course), there’s malty comforting Ovaltine, savoury hot Bovril, fizzy fruity Vimto cordial, Tizer (a citrus and red fruit soft drink very popular with children in the ’40s and ’50s), and ginger beer—all so very reminiscent of British childhood and life in the 1940s.
