A purpose-built manual training centreon the south side of Lausanne Terrace. Opened in 1913 with 200 boys attending. By 1988 the centre had closed and had been taken over by a mental health charity who presumably renamed it the Charlotte Centre. The building is currently empty. It was considered for listing but this was decided against following an inspection in 2010.

From the English Heritage advice report:

"After examining all the papers on this file and other relevant information and having carefully considered the architectural and historic interest of this case, the criteria for listing are not fulfilled.

CONTEXT
Margate has figured prominently in recent research into seaside towns by English Heritage, culminating in the publications 'English Seaside Towns' and specifically 'Margate's Seaside Heritage'. Leading on from this, a Defined Area Survey (DAS) was carried out in the town in 2008 to consider a number of buildings of interest identified in the research for the book prompting a number of amendments and new listings. The Charlotte Centre is being considered for designation under Phase II of the Margate DAS. It is within the Margate Conservation Area.

HISTORY
The building opened as a purpose-built manual training centre at the site on the south side of Lausanne Terrace in 1913 with 200 boys attending. The 1914 Borough of Margate accounts refer to a cookery, laundry and manual training centre funded by the borough on this site. The centre first appears in the 1915-16 edition of the Kelly's Directory as the Borough of Margate Education Committee Cookery and Manual Training Centre. By 1926 all girls of the borough aged between 12 and 14 attended the domestic science department on one day a week, whilst 800 boys attended the handicraft department, with those aged between 11 and 12 doing woodwork and those between 13 and 14 metalwork. By 1988 the centre had closed and had been taken over by a mental health charity who presumably renamed it the Charlotte Centre. The building is currently empty.

DESCRIPTION
The single-storey building, designed in a mixture of neo-Classical and Queen Anne Revival styles, consists of two principal ranges (the eastern range being longer) with a low, flat-roofed link block, containing the main entrance to the south, and another linked flat-roofed block to the east. Built of red brick with cement-rendered dressings, each range has an identical gabled frontage onto Lausanne Terrace with a Venetian window between brick piers with rendered plinth blocks and caps with swags. The gables have rendered cornices with a concrete cartouche bearing a child's head above the window, that to the east range bearing the legend LAUNDRY AND COOKERY CENTRE 1913, and that to the west, MANUAL TRAINING CENTRE 1913. Fenestration to the other elevations consists of square-headed cement rendered mullion windows with cornice and wooden sashes except on the west elevation of the west range which has plain brick windows. The windows to the north elevations of the flat-roofed blocks have pediments above. The tiled roofs are hipped at the south end and have large pedimented dormers with a round-arched mullion and transom window (the east range has one on both the east and west elevations, the west range just on the east elevation) and the east range has small flat-roofed dormers to the south. The interiors are utilitarian and there has been some later partitioning. Each of the main ranges contains a hall, that to the east range having an open ceiling with open wooden trusses with diagonal steel truss rods. The west range has a low ceiling supported on chamfered wooden beams but oddly no access for an upper floor rendering the dormer purely decorative. It is unclear if this is a later modification but it looks original. The building retains its parquet flooring, windows and some original cupboards.

ASSESSMENT
The English Heritage Selection Guide for Education Buildings states that, for buildings between 1870 and 1945, the principal criteria for designation are intactness, architectural interest, planning, earliness and rarity. Manual instruction centres, which were a way of broadening the school curriculum to include cookery, laundry and woodwork/metalwork within local school boards without the expense of providing new specialist buildings (and staff) at each school, began to be built from 1875. They increased in number from 1890 when laundry became an education code subject and by the end of the C19 there were over 200 such centres. The impact of the new centres was significant: in 1910-11 only 89 courses in laundry were undertaken in English schools, as opposed to 638 in Manual Training Centres. Built in 1913, the Margate Cookery and Manual Training Centre is part of this development, but not an early example of this relatively common building type.

The mixture of Queen Anne Revival and neo-Classical styles by an unknown architect, is illustrative of the shift at the start of the C20 from the former towards the latter (along with neo-Georgian) as the predominant style for educational buildings. It is not, however, particularly innovative, carried out with especial flair, or using high quality materials, particularly evident in the use of concrete for the dressings. Internally, few of the original fittings survive other than the
parquet floors and some fitted cupboards and there is little evidence of the building's former function such as hearths or work benches, not unexpectedly given its various changes of use. Despite some attractive features such as the Venetian windows and Rococo cartouches, which seek to elevate architecturally what is ultimately a rather modest building with a practical function, the building is neither rare or early enough as a building type, nor intact or architecturally distinguished enough to have special interest in a national context. However, the building has clear local interest as the first Manual Training Centre in Margate and as evidence of the diversification in the education curriculum in the early years of the C20.

CONCLUSION
The Charlotte Centre does not meet the criteria for designation.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION DECISION:
The Charlotte Centre, formerly a local authority manual training centre built in 1913, is not
recommended for designation for the following principal reasons:
* Lack of architectural interest: the mixed Queen Anne Revival and neo-Classical styles were both commonplace for educational buildings of this period;
* Materials: the use of concrete in the detailing is indicative of the generally mediocre quality of the materials and craftsmanship;
* Ubiquity: manual training centres, providing specialist dimensions to the curriculum for several local schools, were a common feature of education between 1875 and 1914 and the building type is not rare;
* Late date: built in 1913, the Charlotte Centre is a late example of the building type."

English Heritage, 2010, The Charlotte Centre, Lausanne Terrace, Margate, Thanet, Kent (Scheduling record). SKE16285.