local Margate-Broadstairs-Ramsgate train service was envisaged. Dreamland's remote origins as an entertainment venue date from the same year, when London restaurateurs Spiers and Pond opened a restaurant and dance hall in the unused railway terminus on the Mere causeway. Not being very successful, this 'Hall by the Sea' was bought by the Reeve family of Margate in 1870 for £3,750, who also gradually acquired the low-lying land at the rear of the Hall. In 1870, circus entrepreneur George Sanger went into partnership to run the 'Hall by the Sea' with Thomas Dalby Reeve, the then Mayor of Margate. After Reeve's death in 1875, Sanger became the sole proprietor of the Hall and the land behind it. This land behind the Hall, the former 'Mere', was turned into pleasure gardens with a mock ruined abbey, lake, statues and a menagerie – as well as sideshows and roundabouts. Animal cages and Gothic walls on the present Dreamland western and southern boundaries (now listed Grade II) date from this time. The main purpose of the menagerie was to act as a breeding and training centre for animals used in Sanger's travelling circus. The first amusement rides were installed as early as 1880 when 'Sea on Land' machines were installed. Passengers sat in ‘boats’ that were made by a system of levers to pitch and roll as though at sea – a direct antecedent of the contemporary ‘flight simulator’ rides. In 1893 a large skating rink was built. Shortly after this, the park gained some notoriety as the venue for the murder of a sex-worker by the local circus strong man. Sanger died in 1911 during a scuffle arising from the attempted murder of a friend (although Sanger himself may have been the intended target), and the park entered an uncertain period as part of the attraction was the charisma of the man himself. In the end, the site was purchased from his estate in 1919 for £40,000 by John Henry Iles, who had already set up theme parks all over the world, including at Cairo, Berlin, Petrograd (now St Petersburg) and Pittsburgh. Inspired by Coney Island, which he had visited in 1906, Iles renamed the site 'Dreamland' and initiated work on the construction of the Scenic Railway rollercoaster in 1919, having purchased the European rights to the Scenic Railway design from inventor and patent holder LaMarcus Adna Thompson. The ride opened to the