£3.5 Million Required to save Prospect Cottage – Achieved and more!!

Latest news is the £3.5 million target has been exceeded – with a greater percentage being donated through ‘crowd funding’. It will be interesting to know how and where the money raised is to be spent – as to many it does seem to be an extraordinary amount of money when the building itself would realise in the region of £350,000.00 to £400,000.00. on the open market.

‘Art Fund’, together with Tate and Creative Folkestone have been campaigning to raise some £3.5 million to ensure prospect Cottage and the memory/legacy of Derek Jarmen is preserved for the future.

To date some £2,710,579 has been raised through donations including ‘crowd funding from some 5,200 individuals

The following from ‘Art Fund’ outlines the campaign strategy

Join the campaign to protect Derek Jarman’s legacy, and inspire creativity in generations to come.

On the windswept shore of Dungeness, visionary British filmmaker, artist and activist Derek Jarman transformed a Victorian fisherman’s hut into a sanctuary of art and imagination.

Prospect Cottage and its iconic garden stand testament to his defiant spirit, and have the potential to inspire artists and visitors long into the future.

But they are at risk. Help us raise £3.5 million to #SaveProspectCottage, and secure its future as a centre of creative activity – for everyone.

Full information about the project here

For details about the online auction of Sandy Powell’s suit, which is open for bidding from 11am Wednesday 4 March to 5pm Wednesday 11 March, (last day tomorrow) please visit Phillips’ website.

Derek Jarman at Prospect Cottage, Dungeness © Geraint Lewis
Derek Jarman (1942-94) is one of the most influential figures in 20th-century British culture.

More than 25 years after his death, Prospect Cottage, his former home and garden, continues to be a site of pilgrimage for people from all over the world, who come to be inspired by its stark beauty and by Jarman’s legacy.

From poetry etched into panes of glass, to Jarman’s driftwood sculptures and the remarkable garden he coaxed from the shingle, it represents the most complete distillation of his creativity and determination.

With your support we will be able not only to protect this extraordinary place and its contents, but to ensure it can thrive as a creative space for years to come.

With expert care overseen by Creative Folkestone, Kent’s leading arts organisation, the garden will be restored and will continue to evolve as it did during Jarman’s lifetime.

A residency programme for artists, writers, gardeners, filmmakers, academics, activists and others will engage as many people as possible with Jarman’s life and work, and for the first time, members of the public will be able to apply to visit inside the cottage.

And Tate will take on permanent loan some of the most important and vulnerable archive material from the cottage, including Jarman’s sketchbooks, letters, drawings and photographs, forming a publicly accessible collection at Tate Britain specific to Dungeness – with huge potential to inspire new research, exhibitions and displays

To make this happen, Prospect Cottage needs you.

We are crowdfunding to meet the £3.5 million needed to secure the future of Prospect Cottage as a centre of creative activity.

Every contribution brings us closer to our goal.

As a thank you for your donation, you can choose from a range of rewards created by leading artists and supporters of the campaign. Rewards include limited-edition prints, objects and works of art; please do keep a look out for new rewards throughout the campaign.

Thanks to the support of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Linbury Trust, private individuals and Art Fund’s own grant, we have made great progress towards our £3.5 million target. But there is still a way to go before our deadline of 31 March.

Without this appeal, the cottage is at risk of being sold privately, its contents dispersed, and artistic legacy lost.

We cannot do this without your help.

Comments/ donations welcome!!

Join us to protect Derek Jarman’s legacy, and inspire creativity in generations to come.

About the Author: Mike Golding

Born in Ashford a long time ago I have had a lifelong relationship with Dungeness having spent every year here for a fortnights holiday up to the age of 15. In those good old days there was no electricity and hence no radio, no running water and no adequate sewage solutions. Nothing to do other than enjoy the vast expanse of the Ness and all it offered for the young children of that era. Out after breakfast and back before nightfall. There were lakes to swim in. Same lakes to boat on (well old railway sleepers). A derelict school and long disused railway station in and on which to play. Gun emplacements, underground shelters. Sheer bliss. That all ended at 16 when I joined the RAF, finally purchasing a shack – as indeed it was then – in 1971 for the princely sum of £750.00. Only 15 years prior to that we could not afford the £150.00 asking price for what was then known as ‘Windwhistle’, reported to be one of Queen Victoria’s entourages carriages. Still there today, sold last year (2022) and still awaiting planning permission to re construct, but the original structure still concealed behind painted shiplap. Leaving the mob I travelled, retuning ‘home’ as oft I could, and realistically, only becoming a permanent fixture since 1977. In those days there was a vibrant community here with annual gatherings for the Mayday festival – spit roast and all and open days at the Lifeboat station – with bosuns chairs, zip wires to keep the kids happy. I think Health and Safety put paid to that and other activities, as did the moving away of many locals. The result of which , today there are probably less than 20 families residing here permanently, (I have been told not to use the word ‘shacks’ as now, at £650,000.00 plus they are 'desirable bungalows in a well sought after locale'. So ‘Shacks’ they are! End. P.S A few originals left to rent from £500 per week.