Sea walls covered in graffiti, swimming pools emptied and left only to the weeds, and litter caught on the breeze – relics of a heyday long since past.

For all of Margate’s progress over the past 20 years, it retains a stretch of beach which has become almost forgotten. Yet on closer examination it provides a fascinating unravelling of the town’s rollercoaster fortunes of the last 150 years.

Like the rings of a tree, by walking the short stretch you can chart the remnants of previous eras.

It runs from behind the Turner Contemporary, past the once-thriving Lido, the now-boarded up Winter Gardens and along to the Walpole Bay tidal pool.

Once it was a prime location; an upmarket stretch underpinned by the sophisticated new town which loomed above it on the cliff top.

Cliftonville was designed to cater for cash-rich London folk wanting to live and stay in splendour by the sea.

As local historian Nick Evans describes them: “Class-conscious Victorians thrilled at the chance of leaving the grimy city for lungfuls of healthy sea air, but to say you had spent your holiday in downmarket Margate was too much to bear.

“Instead, just a mile or so up the road from this brash, cockney-influenced fleshpot was developed Cliftonville – its cheek-by-jowl, but far better behaved, neighbour.”

Today, Cliftonville is one of the most deprived areas not just in Kent but the country. A remarkable reversal of fortunes.

A walk along its coastline reveals its boom-and-bust history.

“It’s a funny sort of stretch, isn't it?” says Nick, the man behind a host of history books, among them two on Cliftonville.

“These days, there's no obvious beach to go to. But there's a lot of stuff that used to be there. For various reasons it just fell apart.”

Before you start your stroll look out over the sea. If the tide isn’t in, you’ll be able to spot the Antony Gormley statue – in front of the Turner Contemporary. The life-size creation is stood on the foundations of the town’s once hugely popular pier.

Originally built to provide a stop-off place for the flow of visitors who would travel from London by paddle-steamer, it was closed in 1976 before a storm two years later demolished most of it. Its remains could still be seen until 1998.

Within moments of strolling past the Turner and the yacht clubs, you encounter the back of the Winter Gardens. Built into the chalk cliffs it has hosted some of the world’s biggest names since it opened in 1911.

Closed last summer as the council weighs up its options as to what to do next, it is now ringed with security fences. The crumbling building highlights the sheer level of investment needed to revive it.

For such a picturesque venue back in the day, its rear entrance has never been a pretty sight. Today it ticks all the boxes of an eyesore.

A few minutes further on and you approach the Lido – one of the most fascinating parts of this walk through time.

It is a part of Margate which shrills to the sound of potential yet sits unloved and drenched in colourful graffiti.

But once upon a time it was in a class of its own.

Today, split by the coast path, the vast open-air swimming complex on the sea’s edge was built at great expense in 1925. Pulling in sea water, it could cater for 1,000 swimmers at any one time. It was once owned and heavily invested in by the entrepreneur John Henry Illes – the man also responsible for creating the Dreamland park just down the road.

It connected to the Lido complex – a pleasure palace designed originally to capitalise on the desire for entertainment for those staying in Cliftonville. It featured an inside, warm, sea-water pool. Over the years it had been developed to offer bars, a cinema and a host of changing facilities for the swimmers. A theatre was also added.

Seating spread out onto the coastal path, allowing diners to eat overlooking the pool.

There was even a funicular-style lift which could transport people from the top of the cliff down to the poolside.

Originally offering a host of salt water treatments, once much in demand, the Lido had to adjust over the years. By the 1950s, the treatments were long gone and replaced by, among other things, a tropical fish aquarium and mini zoo. It was sited in the buildings which remain standing, somewhat forlornly, - albeit with no trace of their previous use.

But the shift in our holiday desires – fuelled by the advent of cheap foreign package deals – would spell the end of its heyday. The theatre was demolished, and the pool closed in 1981. It has since been filled in. The tracks of the funicular can still be seen. Built prior to the First World War, it continued in use for more than 50 years.

Today, what remains of the Lido, on the coastal path, is wrapped in graffiti. Above the cliff there are traces of life – a snooker hall, a club bar. Both, however, on a summer’s lunchtime remain firmly bolted shut. It is the most unwelcoming of places now.

Nick explains: “I think the swimming pool in particular and the land around it was leased in the 1920s, from Margate Corporation, on a 50-year agreement,

“The new owners probably didn’t want to renew the lease of the swimming pool, which was beginning to fall apart. It certainly needed a lot of repairs. There was talk at the time of redeveloping the pool itself into two smaller ones. But it came to nothing. It was probably just too expensive to do anything with it.

“There have been various ideas over the last 20 years about what to do with the Lido itself. A few years ago the people who run the Sea Life centres were said to be interested in having one there. That seemed quite an exciting idea but nothing happened.”

So far this is not the Margate the glowing write-ups tell you about. This is what happened to Margate – a lifeline of its decline.

Walking a little further and you go past Newgate Gap – an access route through the cliffs and down to the beach – which was once a hugely popular place for those who wanted to take the waters.

It was here that Pettman’s Bathing Station was based. It was hugely popular and offered well-to-do visitors the opportunity to board a bathing station and have horses drag them out into the waters where they could take the ‘healing’ salt-water treatments with their modesty intact.

As the years passed, this same stretch was a popular site for donkey rides and all the associated merriment of a steady stream of Cliftonville holidaymakers.

Today it is as if it never happened. Newgate Gap remains, but leads on to an empty stretch of beach.

Heading onwards, you approach Walpole Bay. The remnants of removed stairs can be seen on the cliff edge – a grand art deco lift, built in 1934, which once carried people from the cliff edge to the seafront has been out of commission for many years. It today stands unloved and unattended.

And then there is the Walpole Bay tidal pool – a remarkable, four-acre, site which, without doubt, is one of Thanet’s, and Kent’s, hidden gems.

Opened in 1937, at the peak of Margate’s popularity, it was an impressive piece of engineering. Using one-tonne concrete blocks and reinforced with old tram rails, it is filled with each incoming tide and supplemented by natural springs which rise up beneath it. It is the biggest such tidal pool in the UK.

It remains a popular destination for those wanting to swim, paddleboard or even try a kayak.

Originally, there was an extensive pavilion complex providing entertainment and refreshments – but it was demolished during storms in 1953. Rebuilt but damaged by storms again, it would eventually usher in stronger cliff defences which now see broad footpaths for walkers.

Before you return, though, take the steps up to the clifftop. Here is Cliftonville today – a very different animal to what it was once designed to be.

Yet the majesty of many of its buildings hark back to what it once was. There’s also the Oval bandstand – once the heart of the town’s outside, clifftop entertainment offering.

It was ringed by the five-star hotels of their time – where fine dining and sophistication was what had put Cliftonville on the map.

But times were changing and by the 1950s many were snapped up by Billy Butlin – the man behind the Butlins holiday empire.

By the mid-1960s it owned seven of those close to the Oval – one of which even saw the swimming pool transformed into a dolphinarium.

Nick says: “I think that was almost like the front garden for the Butlins hotels nearby and was before Butlins came to town.

“Why did Cliftonville start to decline? It's the old argument about holidays abroad and guaranteed sunshine. The Butlins hotels, while they were popular, weren't as upmarket as they had been before.”

It’s easy to point the finger of blame at Margate’s decline at the local authority – but the reality is that many of the sites collapsed in private hands and then changed onwership over time, but to no wider benefit.

Nick says: “It’s so often private owners who've come up with some bright ideas and fall flat at the first hurdle with either help or hindrance from the council on trying to influence what may go there. You see it a lot in Margate over the years.”

By the mid-1960s we started to turn our back on both Margate and Cliftonville.

While Margate’s Main Sands, amusements and Dreamland kept it ticking over, Cliftonville struggled to keep up.

By the 1990s, both were at their lowest points.

Yet, returning to your starting point of the Turner reminds you of just how far the town has come since. Aside from the forgotten stretch of beach, the town has a vibrancy once more. Cliftonville is beginning to show the green shoots of recovery too. But there is a long way to go.

Hopefully walking the same stretch of coast in another 10 years may paint a very different picture.

Nick Evans has written two picture-led history books on the changing face of Cliftonville over the years. The first volume is currently on sale at Lovely's Art Gallery in Northdown Road, Cliftonville, Birchington Framing in Station Road, Birchington, and at Westgate Galleria in Station Road, Westgate.