In 1986, Derek Jarman went for an HIV test. He was, at the time, one of the most celebrated artists and filmmakers of his generation.

Not afraid to push boundaries, his art was experimental, anti-establishment and embraced homosexuality at a time when few others dared. He was, perhaps, as well known as a gay activist as he was for his art.

Yet the late 1980s was a terrifying time for many in the gay community. AIDS had emerged as a global epidemic, engendering a fear among the wider population and delivering a death sentence to millions. There was, at the time, no treatment other than palliative.

The test, as he suspected, came back positive.

“I had been pushed into yet another corner,” he reflected a few years later, “this time for keeps.”

But despite the stigma attached to the condition, in one remote area of Kent he found solace and, perhaps most significantly, community support.

After visiting the shingle shores of Dungeness with the actor Tilda Swinton - the future Academy Award-winner then having only just made her debut in Jarman’s 1986 movie Caravaggio - he spied a wooden fisherman’s cottage sat surrounded by a modest garden, close to the looming hulk of the neighbouring nuclear power station.

He bought it, for £32,000, almost immediately - using money left to him by his father who had just passed away.

With the death sentence of his diagnosis hanging heavy, he sought an escape from London, where he retained a flat, and a chance to be close to the sea. Prospect Cottage provided it.

There he continued to work, surrounded by objet d’art which changed shape as the light of the different seasons played upon them. He tended the garden - transforming it into something creative, bringing to life sculpture and harnessing the limited plant life which could grow on the shingle shore to create something which proved a hit with locals and visitors alike.

There he was joined by his beloved companion Keith Collins who would care for him during his darkest days and revel in their friendship when the sun shone. While not lovers, the two relied upon one another. It was, Jarman would later reflect, the most fulfilling relationship of his life.

Perhaps more remarkable, given the negativity which surrounded HIV at the time, was that the community embraced them.

“Derek had just had his diagnosis and been quite open about it,” explains Gilbert McCarragher, a Dungeness-based photographer and long-time friend of Keith’s.

“Given the terrible press Derek was getting at the time for his diagnosis, you would think he’d be burned alive. But it was quite the opposite. It’s so easy to underestimate people.

“But it shows how amazing Dungeness is and the community that it seemed to work.”

Jarman would live until 1994 when his body finally succumbed to the inevitable. He was just 52.

His funeral - he is buried at St Clement’s Church in Old Romney - was attended by the likes of Swinton and Pet Shop Boys frontman Neil Tennant (with whom Jarman had worked and, living in nearby Rye, was a visitor to the cottage).

Keith Collins would inherit the house and continued to maintain it, both inside and out, until his own untimely death at the age of just 54. He had suffered a brain tumour.

His loss was, like that of Jarman’s, keenly felt by the local community, into which he had become embedded. After Jarman’s death he had retreated into the cottage seeking refuge. It was there Ken Thomas, a local fisherman, had knocked on his door to both enquire how he was and to offer him a job.

For a number of years, Collins worked as a fisherman. He became part of the Thomas family - an adopted son and brother.

Yet Prospect Cottage continues to be a place of pilgrimage - its garden still maintained and the cottage itself a continuing popular tourist attraction - saved by the Art Fund’s campaigning which, today, sees it handled by Creative Folkestone.

A book published this week provides a fascinating insight into the home exactly how it was when Keith had left it.

Comprised of a series of images captured over a number of years, it became a labour of love for Mr McCarragher, who was given remarkable access to the cottage.

The photographer explains: “Initially I was asked to make an inventory within weeks of Keith becoming unwell.

“The idea was just to make sure there was a record of how the house was. The mood music at that stage was not great for Keith. We all, in our hearts, knew where that was going.

“But it was felt important to record the house, as it was, at that moment in time.

“I went in knowing Keith had closed the door on that house two weeks earlier thinking he'd be back within a week or so. And he didn't. He never came back.

“Keith's clothes were left drying on the side of the bathtub and there were boxes of books he was going through. You can imagine what that is like.”

He would return over the course of four years to continually document his friend’s home.

“People kept saying 'Surely there's nothing left to photograph',” he explained. “It's pretty small. But, to be honest, every time I went back in there was always something new - another story to tell.”

The result is Prospect Cottage: Derek Jarman’s House - a lavishly illustrated hardback which provides a unique insight into the property which continues, to this day, to attract visitors from around the world.

“It is only four rooms of similar size but it's surprising how lost you can get within that,” the photographer explains. “There were so many things to capture your attention. It was like a labyrinth.

“The house is certainly a character in itself. The way Jarman created his house is fascinating. Before he moved in, there were just big windows - he was the one who put in the grid ones you see today. You do wonder the motivation for creating those smaller paned windows which are now so iconic. Was it to break up the view outside?

“Dungeness is so vast, the skies so huge and the shingle so sweeping, your eyes can get lost within that and doesn't fall on anything. But divided up through a grid, it creates more intimate moments.”

Jarman’s influence lives on - but it is perhaps just as much to do with Keith Collins that Prospect Cottage remains such a part of the artist’s legacy. After all, he continued to live in Dungeness for 24 years - painstakingly maintaining the cottage and its garden.

Adds Gilbert McCarragher: “For me, it was to really respect Keith - that people understood how hard Keith had worked at protecting and looking after Prospect Cottage. That's not an easy task. He looked after it when no-one else was looking.

“It was a really big commitment. And the weather is brutal, so it's no easy thing.”

The photographer, himself, moved to Dungeness in 2008 - renovating a “shack on the beach” about a five- to 10-minute walk away. He, like Keith and Derek, came under its spell.

Concluding: “When we first moved there, I didn't appreciate there would be community in the way there was. But within five minutes of moving in we had people knocking on the door. I've never felt that sense of community more than in Dungeness.”

Prospect Cottage: Derek Jarman’s House by Gilbert McCarragher is on sale now, published by Thames & Hudson.