A Kent gallery has won silver at the Beautiful South Awards in the Large Visitor Attraction of the Year category.

Turner Contemporary in Margate clinched the prize at the ceremony in Brighton held to celebrate excellence in tourism in the south east.

The ceremony at Brighton’s iconic Grand Hotel provided the setting for this year’s Beautiful South Awards, which was sponsored by Faversham-based Shepherd Neame.

The other Kent winner was Port Lympne Reserve, whose Livingstone Lodge Overnight Safari beat off tough competition to win Tourism Experience of the year.

The accolade for Turner Contemporary follows an ambitious and successful 2014 programme including major exhibitions of works by JMW Turner, Helen Frankenthaler, Edmund de Waal, Piet Mondrian and Jeremy Deller.

Since opening in April 2011, Turner Contemporary has welcomed more than 1.4 million visitors and contributed over 32 million to the local economy.

The next big exhibition scheduled for 2015 is Self: image and identity, a show of more than 100 artist self-portraits from the sixteenth-century to the present day, from Sir Anthony van Dyck and JMW Turner to recent work by Louise Bourgeois and Yinka Shonibare.

It opens on Saturday, January 24. Visit www.turnercontemporary.org