Britain's Art Fund (formerly the National Art Collections Fund) has launched an appeal to raise £3.5 million by March 31 to buy artist and film-maker Derek Jarman's much visited home, Prospect Cottage, its contents, and its abstract, futuristic garden at nearby Dungeness.
Jarman died in 1994, but his home and garden has been preserved as it was then, and has regularly featured in articles and programmes about his life and work.
That work reflects the isolation and strange beauty of the huge shingle bank at Dungeness which has built up over centuries, and may even have provided sheltered anchorage for the invading Norman fleet in 1066 before the Battle of Hastings.
Most of the land and many of the buildings (apart from Prospect Cottage) were bought a few years ago by the company running the nuclear power station at Dungeness.
