Photos by John Latter : on the map, in Google Earth (KML)

This is a 'winter edition' of the autumn Dover Town and Dover Castle from the Western Heights photo uploaded on November 5th, 2009.

Left of centre on the skyline is the Norman Keep (or Great Tower) of Dover Castle; further left are three masts of a Second World War early-warning Chain Home radar station.

Right of centre on the skyline are the Roman Pharos and adjacent Saxon church of St Mary-in-Castro.

Just below the skyline towards the right-hand edge of the photo is an end view of the Victorian Officer's Mess (I have a photo of it, but it hasn't been uploaded yet).

Stretching across the lower half of the photo is the row of large terraced houses of Victoria Park, to the left of which lies the southern entrance to the Zig Zags; if you know where to look, the West Wall of Old St James Church is also visible (bottom right, in a line under the end houses of Victoria Park).

Within 5 to 150 yards of where this photo was taken from are: Cowgate Cemetery Nature Reserve, the Court`s Folly, the 64 Steps, and the Drop Redoubt (see below).

In June of this year (2009) I made a video of the Victorian North Entrance whose opening sequence began with a similar view to that shown in the above photograph (taken a few yards from the Drop Redoubt).

The North Entrance and the Drop Redoubt are only two parts of the extensive Napoleonic and Victorian defence system embedded into the Western Heights. The North Entrance video is in two parts:

Video of the North Entrance, Western Heights, Dover (Part 1)

Video of the North Entrance, Western Heights, Dover (Part 2)

Dover Castle and the Western Heights fortifications are English Heritage sites.

John Latter / Jorolat

Dover Blog: The Psychology of a Small Town

This is the Images of Dover website: click on any blue "John Latter" link to access the Entry Page.

Also see the Dover Town and Dover Castle in Winter from the Western Heights photo.

This view of the old Dover Waterworks' pumping station on Connaught Road was taken from Constable's Road, the pedestrian entrance for visitors to Dover Castle (an English Heritage site).

Extracted from a Geograph webpage, written in 2006:

The tall building on the left consists of a front part and a slightly narrower rear part (look at the roof area) which once housed two triple expansion steam pumping engines (see under Multiple expansion engines).

The rear part of the building still houses a somewhat rusty example, commissioned in 1939, while the front part once contained an engine commissioned in 1954, making it the last steam pumping engine commissioned in England. This engine is now at the Forncett Industrial Steam Museum in Norfolk*

In addition to the pumping station, the other reason for taking this photograph is the thin layer of snow on Constable's Road in the foreground - and three days before the Winter Solstice, too! (in recent decades snow has been rather a rare event).

Constable's Road (so named because it leads to Dover Castle's Constable`s Gate**, out of view to the left) goes down to the right and then turns abruptly to meet Castle Hill Road which lies below, and parallel to, the wall in the photo.

Connaught Road, visible near the top right-hand corner of the photo, meets Castle Hill Road a few yards further uphill from the Constable Road junction, but before it does so, however, there are entrances on either side to the Zig Zaga Park and the South Gate of Connaught Park.

*Further notes from the The Dover Engine webpage states:

Worthington Simpson (Newark) No 5056 was built in 1937 with sister engine No 5055. However, this engine laid boxed up at Worthington Simpson's works in Newark, Nottingham, during the war years and it was not until 1954 that 5056 was built and commissioned in service at the Connaught Road Pumping Station, Dover, where 5055 had been working since 1939.

The substantial labour costs associated with steam pumping of water meant that despite being virtually unworn, the engines commercial lives were over in the early 1970's and following negotiations which resulted in the engine being purchased on the 'never never' dismantling commenced in 1977, the waterworks staff being displaced by modern technology working their notice on this task.

The relocation, preservation and ongoing restoration of this massive engine - the last reciprocating waterworks steam pumping engine of any notable size to be erected for public waterworks service in the UK, represents the absolute zenith of private preservation efforts, many groups have been formed (and some have failed) to preserve large waterworks engines in situ, few individuals have attempted - almost single handed in the early years - to remove - some 85 tons of engine, being transported on about thirty lorry loads - and rebuild such a massive engine on a different site but this is exactly what Dr Francis commenced on in 1977.

The Worthington Simpson foreman erector John Graveny. although due to retire, was kept on by Worthingtons (who also sponsored a number of other aspects of this preservation project on their last 'big' engine and still maintain a keen interest in it and the Museum's progress) to supervise dismantling and rebuilding of the engine - this was a job he knew well being the third time he had built the engine (once for initial build and test at Newark, once on site in Dover and finally at Forncett)

**Also known as Constable's Gateway, or Constable's Tower; the other entrance to Dover Castle is Canons Gate.

John Latter / Jorolat

Dover Blog: The Psychology of a Small Town

This is the Images of Dover website: click on any red or blue "John Latter" link to access the Entry Page.

Viewed from the south-east, this is the first photo of the Louis Blériot Memorial uploaded since the 2009 Centennial, just prior to which the immediate area was landscaped and access pathways laid.

The memorial is located in Northfall Meadow immediately behind Dover Castle, which is now a wooded area. Three sequential photos (one, two, three) show views of the southwestern approach path (as they appeared in 2007) and give details of the north-northeast entry.

Extract from Bleriot`s Centennial Flight Over The English Channel:

July 27, 2009, Edmond Salis a Frenchman restored a Blériot XI Monoplane and flew it from Calais to Dover on Saturday to commemorate the centennial of the first airplane to cross the English Channel.

Other news reports regarding the anniversary include: New York Times, Life Magazine, The Observer (UK).

Click to see all photos of the Louis Bleriot Memorial

Standard Info

(Info on how to find the memorial is at the bottom of this entry)

The 'Cockpit Stone' of the Bleriot Memorial in Dover's Northfall Meadow reads:

After making the first Channel flight by aeroplane

LOUIS BLERIOT

Landed at this spot on Sunday 25th July 1909

This memorial was presented to the Aero Club of the United Kingdom (1) by Alexander Duckham

From the "History of Flight - US Centennial of Flight Commision" (2):

Louis Bleriot, the 37-year old French inventor, aircraft designer, and self-trained pilot, flew across the treacherous English Channel early on July 25, 1909, in an aircraft he designed himself--the Bleriot XI. The flight from Les Barraques (now Bleriot Plage), France, to Dover, England, undertaken in bad weather, earned him the £1000 prize that the London Daily Mail had offered to the first aviator to cross the Channel in either direction. His accomplishment delighted the public and shocked many in the British military and political establishment.

Bleriot was born in Cambrai, France, in 1872, and obtained a degree in Arts and Trades from École Centrale Paris. He invented automobile headlamps and established a very successful acetylene headlamp business, amassing a small fortune. He used the money from his business to experiment with towed gliders on the Seine River, learning much about aircraft and flight dynamics. He built a model ornithopter, which further aroused his interest in aircraft. Bleriot's earliest real aircraft design was for a glider, built in 1905 by another aircraft manufacturer, and he experimented with many biplane and monoplane configurations. His designs were modified and consistently improved, and his planes became known for their high quality and performance.

Bleriot did not invent the monoplane; a Romanian lawyer turned inventor who lived in Paris, Trajan Vuia, built the first one that achieved successful flight, flying 40 feet (12 meters) on March 18, 1906. That year, Bleriot switched from a biplane to a monoplane configuration to increase the efficiency of the wing structure. Then, in 1907 at Bagatelle, France, he flew a plane he had designed himself, the Bleriot Model VII, for the first time, flying more than 1,640 feet (500 meters). Although the craft itself was not considered a success, the Model VII set the pattern for much of Europe's monoplane development.

Flying in those early years of flight was risky. Aircraft engines were small, unreliable, and generally prone to overheating rapidly and most engines of this period could run for only about 20 minutes before they began malfunctioning. In addition, the planes themselves were unreliable, especially for longer flights. Pilots frequently stayed over land or close to the shoreline to avoid open stretches of water, allowing them to head for a roadway or field in an emergency. Less than a week before Bleriot's successful flight, Hubert Latham, another early aviator, was the victim of a failed motor on July 19, when he had to ditch his plane in the water as he tried to cross the Channel. Bleriot acknowledged the danger of early flight in his paper Above the Channel when he reported, "At first I promised my wife that I would not make the attempt." He said that she had begged him not to make the flight and afterward, he promised he would fly "no more" once he completed a race that he had already entered.

The Bleriot XI made its first flight on January 23, 1909, at Issy-les-Moulineaux. The plane was first equipped with a 30-horsepower (22.4-kilowatt) R.E.P. engine, which drove a four-bladed metal propeller. During testing, however, Bleriot replaced it with the more-reliable 25-horsepower (18.6-kilowatt) Anzani engine and installed a Chauviere two-bladed propeller. (But this did not remove all risk--in an earlier flight, Bleriot's Anzani engine had overheated.) The tail consisted of a central rudder and elevators at each end of fixed horizontal tail surfaces. Lateral movement of the aircraft was controlled by wing warping the trailing edges of the wings. The plane had a 25.5-foot (7.8-meter) wingspan, was a little over 26 feet (8 meters) long, and was 8.5 feet (2.6 meters) high. It had an ash fuselage with supporting struts and wire ties, and the shoulder-mounted wing was also wood.

This Bleriot performed admirably. Between May 27, 1909, when the Anzani engine was installed, and its historic Channel crossing, it made some remarkable flights--the best on July 4, which lasted 50 minutes and 8 seconds.

For the July 25 attempt, the French government authorized Bleriot to have a destroyer, the Escopette, support his attempt to span the English Channel. The day before the flight, Bleriot ordered the destroyer to sea. The next morning, when Bleriot drove to the field in Les Barraques, France, where his Model XI was garaged, he noted the light, southwest breeze that would favor his attempt. By 4:30 a.m., just before takeoff, daylight arrived and the wind began to blow. He reported, in a cable to the Washington Post, that he pushed his engine to 1,200 revolutions per minute, nearly top speed, to clear telegraph wires at the crest of the cliff near the field. Then he lowered the engine speed to give the XI an airspeed of approximately 40 miles per hour (64 kilometers per hour) and an altitude of about 250 feet (76 meters). At that speed, he rapidly overtook the destroyer and became lost in the clouds, which blocked his view of all landmarks. He could not even see the ship. The sea below had grown rough. There was wind and rain. His craft did not have a compass! Afterward, he reported those moments, "I am alone. I can see nothing at all. For ten minutes, I am lost."

He continued flying straight ahead as best he could. Roughly 20 minutes after leaving France, he spied the green hills of Dover and the famous castle. The wind had blown him off course. He was near St Margaret's Bay, west of the field where he had planned to land. He would have to push his engine to a greater distance. However, the rain that might otherwise be a problem was cooling his engine. As he approached the Cliffs of Dover, gusts were stronger and airspeed slower as his "beautiful" plane fought the wind. But the Anzani was powerful enough to propel the XI over the Cliff. He spotted his friend waving a French flag to confirm he had the right field. Now Bleriot had to maneuver the craft to not hit any of the buildings near the field (Northfall Meadow). Bleriot reported that the wind caught his plane and whirled him around two or three times. With his altitude at about 65 feet (20 meters) and being driven by the wind, he immediately cut the engine and dropped to the ground! Bleriot commented, "At the risk of smashing everything, I cut the ignition at 20 meters. Now it was up to chance. The landing gear took it rather badly, the propeller was damaged, but my word, so what? I HAD CROSSED THE CHANNEL!" British Customs had no provision for a landing other than by ship, so Bleriot was logged in as a ship's Master and the XI as a yacht.

(1) Founder members: Frank Hedges Butler, his daughter Vera and the Hon Charles Stewart Rolls (see below).

(2) See "Explorers, Daredevils and Record Setters" under Essays.

Also see an image of Dover's statue to Charles Stewart Rolls, co-founder of Rolls Royce motor cars which commemorates his non-stop flight across the English Channel and back on June 2nd, 1910. (Click to see other photos of Dover Statues).

A photo of how Louis Bleriot's plane (a Bleriot XII) looked after an accident at the 1909 Reims Air Meet.

Bleriot XI Video Links

The first video is a 4 minute clip taken at the Imperial War Museum's 1995 Duxford Air Show. The behaviour of the Bleriot monoplane shown is reminiscent of cycling against a headwind - at one point the commentator says, "I'm sure he's going backwards there!"

The second video is a 37 second clip taken at New Zealand's 2006 Warbirds Over Wanaka International Airshow. A caption from the accompanying website states:

The first aircraft ever to fly the English Channel, flown by it’s maker Louis Bleriot, in 1909 in a time of 36 minutes, a Bleriot XI made history. In 1913 an American, “Wizard” Stone brought one to New Zealand and undertook several flights before writing it off at Napier. This Bleriot XI is an original, built in 1918 and brought to New Zealand by it’s owner, Mikael Carlson, exclusively to fly at Warbirds Over Wanaka. Powered by a 50hp Gnome Omega, it cruises a sedate 42 knots.

John Latter / Jorolat

Dover Blog: The Psychology of a Small Town

This is the Images of Dover website: click on any red or blue "John Latter" link to access the Entry Page.

After the junction with Victoria Park, Castle Hill Road (sometimes just Castle Hill), runs uphill in a roughly straight line from south to north, except for this wide loop to the west below Constable`s Barbican.

The Dover Castle tag has been added to the photo because two junctions on the right-hand side of Castle Hill Road, Canons Gate Road (behind the viewer) and Constable's Road (in front), lead to the two Castle entrances of Constable`s Gateway (pedestrians) and Canons Gateway (vehicles), respectively.

Extract from the Street Names of Dover:

Castle Hill - Was built as a military road in 1797. The earlier Castle Hill had run from the top of St. James Street through extensive shrubbery at the foot of the hill and then by way of what is now known as the Zig-Zag.

The Zig Zags Park begins a few yards up from where this photo was taken from, at the bottom of a slope covered in undergrowth:

The Victorian serpentine metalled pathway known as the "Zig Zags" once ran from the top of Laureston Place (as it turns into Victoria Park) up to where Connaught Road meets today's Castle Hill Road at the South Gate of Connaught Park, just across the road from Constable's Road.

John Latter / Jorolat

Dover Blog: The Psychology of a Small Town

This is the Images of Dover website: click on any red or blue "John Latter" link to access the Entry Page.

A view of Avranches Tower (see appended notes for alternative spellings) on the first corner where the eastern outer curtain wall of Dover's Norman Castle briefly changes direction before continuing on its way southwards to the cliff edge.

The photo was taken from a square opening near ground level in the north-east wall of the Inner Bailey.

Click to see a close-up of Avranches Tower, Avranches Tower and Fort Burgoyne, and all photos of Dover Castle (an English Heritage site).

The Louis Bleriot memorial is in the wooded area (Northfall Meadow) to the left of Avranches Tower.

Notes on Avranches Tower

Extract from "The History of the Castle, Town and Port of Dover" by Reverend S. P. H. Statham, Rector of St Mary-in-the-Castle (ie St Mary-in-Castro) (Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899):

Averanche Tower was placed in the angle of this curtain (ie the outer curtain wall above the moat/ditch surrounding Dover castle) and "its foundations were laid below the bottom of the deep ditch on the one side, and the wall was carried up, about ten feet thick, to a level with the inner vallum (vallum was a type of palisade, originally used as part of the Roman defensive fortification system). In this wall they built a gallery on each of the five sides of the tower. At every angle there were several slope steps, leading from one platform to another." It was supported by the manor of Folkestone (1). (p.270, abridged)

William de Averanche seems to have acted as Constable of Dover Castle until 1227. He was a descendant of the William de Albrincis (Averanche) to whom William I (also see William the Conqueror) granted lands for the defense of the Castle, and it is more than probable that Averanche's Tower is named after him. (p.333)

Extract from "Dover Castle" by R. Allen Brown (Her Majesty's Stationery Office, HMSO 1974):

...Furthermore, attention has recently been drawn to the sophisticated design and concentrated fire-power of that section of the curtain (ie outer curtain wall) which is undoubtedly Henry's from Fitzwilliam to Avranches, again reminiscent of Edwardian work a century later at, say, the Tower of London (Mint Street) or Caernarvon. The Avranches Tower itself, which blocks and guards the potentially dangerous re-entrant and entrance of the former Iron Age earthworks, is polygonal to the field (five sides of a pentagon, and cf. the near-contemporary Bell Tower of c. 1190 at the Tower of London), and on each face has two tiers of triple loops evidently designed for the crossbow (2) (see "The English Castle).

(1) From "The Folkestone of Edward Hasted":

The manor of Folkestone was frequently called an honor because it was the 'chief seat of residence of the lords paramount in this barony'. It was held directly from the king and called the Barony of Folkestone or Averenches, after the family who held the barony from the 11th and 12th centuries. The lord who held this manor had to provide certain services for the king, in particular soldiers for the defence of Dover Castle. Each knight was required to defend a certain tower, so one of the towers at the castle was called Averenches Tower and later Clinton Tower.

The last appears to be inaccurate: Avranches/Averenches Tower is a separate constuction to Clinton Tower.

(2) The crossbow reference appears to originate (or at least is discussed) in Renn, D.F., The Avranches Traverse at Dover Castle, Archaeologia Cantiana v.84 (1969), p. 79-92. If anyone can email me a copy then I would be very grateful!: jorolat AT gmail.com

Dover Castle (abridged from The English Heritage Trail)

Guardian of the 'Gateway to England', Dover Castle displays a solid strength and determination that has obviously carried it through many troubled times. Proudly standing atop the White Cliffs, overlooking this busy port, Dover Castle has withstood the test of time remarkably well throughout its long and eventful history. Dover Castle, as it stands today, dates from the rebuilding work during Henry II's reign, but the site has been of vital importance since the Iron Age. The first castle at Dover was probably an Anglo-Saxon fortress and, on the arrival of William the Conqueror, the existing fortifications were improved with the building of an earthwork castle. This Norman 'motte' (mound) which supported the castle is today known as 'Castle Hill'.

Work began on Dover Castle in the latter part of the 12th century with the construction of the Keep (or Great Tower) - the largest in Britain - and is entered through a forebuilding more substantial than any other built before or since. At each corner of the Keep lies a buttress turret, and mid-way along each wall is a pilaster buttress. Four storeys high, the Keep comprises a basement, first floor, and a second floor that spans two storeys, the upper level of which is a mural gallery that can be seen today at the end of the Great Armour Hall. The second storey provided the royal accommodation, and the first floor, based on a similar plan to the second, contained rooms with a much less elaborate decor. All floors were connected by staircases set in the north and south corner turrets.

Providing the entry staircase, and two chapels, is the magnificent forebuilding. It is interesting to note the decor of the chapels - the lower chapel of a Gothic style, and the upper chapel late Norman and richly decorated. From outside of the Keep, the significance of the three-towered forebuilding can be fully appreciated, as it can be seen travelling along the eastern wall of the Keep and turning at the corner of the southern wall. It was around this stronghold that the concentric castle was developed and work was completed mid-13th century.

Dover Castle appears in "Dover in World War Two: 1942", a ten minute British Ministry of Information film, released by the US Office of War Information, and narrated by the American journalist, Edward R. Murrow.

John Latter / Jorolat

Dover Blog: The Psychology of a Small Town

This is the Images of Dover website: click on any blue "John Latter" link to access the Entry Page.

Dead Man's Island, more properly known as the Detached Bastion, is seperated from the North Centre Bastion (where the photo was taken from) by a hanging moat, or cross-ditch.

This moat, whose walls are largely covered in ivy, begins halfway down the left-hand side of the photo and then runs across to the bottom right-hand corner.

The two bastions (connected by the South Caponier) are only part of an extensive Napoleonic and Victorian defence system embedded into the Western Heights above the town of Dover, England..

The central mound on Dead Man's Island was originally a bombproof shelter (see notes below) and then the southern end, whose entrance is visible above, was converted into a shell store and RA store. The mound is divided by an archway.

Above the left-hand slope of the mound, and beneath the dark-green foliage, is an opening to a set of steps leading down to the first drawbridge of the western tunnel (gallery).

Half-way down the right-hand side of the photo the entrance to another set of steps, also hidden under dark-green foliage, which lead to the eastern tunnel.

Out of sight on the other side of the ridge above the mound is the attached North-West Caponier; beyond the caponier and northern side of Dead Man's Island is the glacis.

Dead Man's Island and the North Centre Bastion are an English Heritage site: click on the North Centre Bastion tag to see all internal and external photos of this location.

Extracts from an English Heritage "Archaeological Investigation" (Report No. 7 - North Centre and Detached Bastions):

North Centre and Detached Bastions

North Centre and Detached Bastions formed an important element of the Western Heights defenses, protecting part of the land front to the north-west of the port of Dover. They were built into the linear defences of the Heights and provided a platform for artillery and infantry to defend the northern approaches to the town and the road from Folkestone in the valley below. Both bastions also had intricate measures for their own defence and were designed to operate independently if the need arose.

North Centre Bastion was begun as part of the Napoleonic works in 1804 but left unfinished at the end of hostilities in 1815 (see Napoleonic Wars. The completion of the work as North Centre and Detached Bastions took place between 1858 and 1867 as part of a wider scheme for the Dover defences as a whole. Both bastions supported some artillery until around 1900, after which their use for any purpose was intermittent; small scale re-occupation for local defence probably occurred in both the First and Second World Wars.

The Bombproof Shelter (later Shell Store and RA Store)

This building originally formed a bombproof shelter for the gun detachments in the bastion of the early 1860s. it has a cruciform plan with a semi-circular vault of stretchers, covered by a huge mound of inverted V profile, 37.5m (123ft) long, a maximum of 18.5m (60ft 7in) wide and up to 6.1m (20ft) high. All of the entrances lacked doors to enable rapid deployment to and from the guns; the long arms formed the two shelters while the shorter arms formed a through passage. In the 1890s, the south shelter was converted into a Shell Store and RA Store, bith with doors, for the 7-inch RBLs (Rifled Breech Loader), the northern shelter was blocked at the north end, while the through passage remained unaltered. The covering mound was extended slightly at the north end.

... The north and south shelters are of unequal length and originally opened directly onto the cross passage. The north shelter is featureless apart from the 1890s blocking of pebbly mass concrete at the north end, where it originally opened onto the terreplein. Externally, the extension of the mound has all but concealed the original ramped brick flanking walls.

John Latter / Jorolat

Dover Blog: The Psychology of a Small Town

This is the Images of Dover website: click on any red or blue "John Latter" link to access the Entry Page.

A view of Dover's 12th Century Norman Castle taken from below the eastern end of the pre-Napoleonic earthwork which lies on the northern slopes of the Western Heights.

From "back to front":

1) The 12th Century Norman Keep, or Great Tower, of Dover Castle are surrounded by the massive walls of the Inner Bailey.

Below the Inner Bailey are the Western Battlements, or Western Curtain Wall; Peverell`s Gate is clearly visible.

To the right of the Keep and Inner Bailey, but hidden behind the main trunk of the leafless tree left of centre, are the Roman Pharos and Saxon church of St Mary-in-Castro.

2) The sun-lit ridge running down from the right-hand side of the photo contains the 'lumps and bumps' of the Detached Bastion which is connected to the North Centre Bastion by the South Caponier. This complex is are part of an extensive Napoleonic and Victorian defense system embedded into the Western Heights.

Dover Castle and many locations on the Western Heights are English Heritage sites.

3) The grass bank in shadow on the bottom right-hand side of the picture is the eastern end of the pre-Napoleonic earthwork which lies between the North Centre Bastion complex and the Outer Bastion.

Standard information for the Pre-Napoleonic Earthworks:

Click on the Earthworks tag to see all photos of this location.

The apparent length of this east-west pre-Napoleonic mound and flanking ditches is about 275 hundred yards. It runs parallel to, and some 50 yards downhill from, the North Lines (or Moats) that connect the North Centre Bastion* (behind the viewer) to the mysterious Outer Bastion (in front).

On Google Earth (and on location) the earthwork can be seen to have been truncated to the west by the later construction of the Outer Bastion; the ground drops away on the other side of the Outer Bastion so the earthwork almost certainly once terminated within it confines.

Today's North Centre Bastion and Detached Bastion are a 'second edition' (built 1858 - 1867) with the earthwork now stopping well short of the Detached Bastion's west flanking moat. Before this mid-Victorian alteration, however, the earthwork extended much further to the east.

The original North Centre Bastion (built 1804 - 1815), for example, was constructed around the earthwork which created a dog-leg in the moat (or cross ditch) that seperated the Detached Bastion (as it was then) from the North Centre Bastion proper.

An 1859 map indicates the eastern end of the earthwork terminated near the Outer Bridge of the North Entrance, and that today's moat from the east side of the North Centre Bastion to the Outer Bridge may have replaced it.

As far as I am aware, this is the only pre-Napoleonic earthwork still identifiable as such on the Western Heights of Dover, Kent, UK.

I grew up in Westbury Road and Clarendon Place which lie below this part of the Western Heights and since childhood had vaguely assumed the earthwork was a First World War or Second World War construction.

The ditch above the mound is shallow ("Man-sized") while that below it is much deeper ("No Men here, thank you."). In other words, I thought it was a simple trench built to fill the gap between the North Centre Bastion and the Outer Bastion - it never occured to me that the construction dates might be the other way around!

The Wikipedia entry for the Western Heights states they were "First given earthworks in 1779" without giving any of their locations.

An English Heritage "Archaeological Investigation" (Report No. 7 - North Centre and Detached Bastions), on the other hand, specifically refers to the earthwork in the above photo, states how it existed before the first North Centre Bastion and was subsequently incorporated into it, etc., but also says it is only probable that it dates from the 1770s and 1780s.

• The North Centre Bastion is also known as "Dead Man's Island" and "Smokey".

Click to see my super-duper video of the North Centre Bastion.

John Latter / Jorolat

Dover Blog: The Psychology of a Small Town

The Sergeant Major's house, just south of Peverell`s Gate on the western Outer Curtain Wall, was once the home of the Battery Sergeant Majors who were garrisoned at Dover Castle. It is now an English Heritage "Holiday Cottage":

This is an elegant and spacious four-storey Georgian house standing in its own grounds with expansive views to the English Channel, one of the busiest waterways in the world. On one side of the house are the inner fortified battlement walls reaching to the Castle above and, on the other side, the outer walls sweeping down to the moat and town below. Just behind is the 13th-century Peverell’s Gateway. Once home to the Battery Sergeant Majors garrisoned at the Castle, the house was more recently lived in by the Custodian of the Castle.

The house has three bedrooms; two doubles and one twin. There is a bathroom with shower over the bath and a further separate shower room and cloakroom. There is a very large kitchen/ diner and a cosy sitting room. In the basement there is a games room and further sitting room with plasma TV.

As well as its stunning location right in the heart of Dover Castle, Sergeant Major’s House itself offers something for all the family. Enjoy the magnificent Keep views from the sitting room while the kids wear themselves out at the table tennis table and at the end of the day gather the whole family together for meals around the generous dining table and plan your next day of fun!

I would love to stay in the Sergeant Major's House, not least because of having the Castle grounds all to myself first thing in the morning and last thing at night - taking photographs at those times would be brilliant :)

Unfortunately, I'll have to win the Lottery first: the price for 7 nights between the 16th of July and the 2nd of September in 2010 (the most expensive period) is currently scheduled to be GBP1486! (click to see the full price list).

Peverell's Gate (or Peverell's Tower) is on the left-hand side of the photo; the Keep, or Great Tower, is above and behind the Sergeant Major's House; the west flanking tower of Palace Gate on the Inner Bailey walls is at top right.

This view was taken from Gatton's Tower.

Extract from "The History of the Town and Port of Dover and of Dover Castle (With a Short Account of the Cinque Ports)", Volume 2. Dedicated by the Reverend John Lyon, Minister of "Saint Mary`s", on April 21st, 1814, and published the same year:

Gatton Tower

This tower was built by William Peverell, to strengthen the curtain (wall) between his own and Arsick's Tower (now Say's Tower); and he granted the manor of Throwley, to one William le Dane, knight, and he held it on castle-guard tenure.

Robert de Gatton held of the same Lord, and by the same service, the town of Gatton, in Surrey; and he gave his name to this tower. There was originally a house for the officer, near this building.

A person, of the name of Copeley, was also appointed to this tower; but as we do not find that the historians have recorded any thing memorable in their lives, they probably never stepped beyond the common routine of duty.

Dover Castle is an English Heritage site.

Abridged from The English Heritage Trail:

Dover Castle

Guardian of the 'Gateway to England', Dover Castle displays a solid strength and determination that has obviously carried it through many troubled times. Proudly standing atop the White Cliffs, overlooking this busy port, Dover Castle has withstood the test of time remarkably well throughout its long and eventful history. Dover Castle, as it stands today, dates from the rebuilding work during Henry II's reign, but the site has been of vital importance since the Iron Age. The first castle at Dover was probably an Anglo-Saxon fortress and, on the arrival of William the Conqueror, the existing fortifications were improved with the building of an earthwork castle. This Norman 'motte' (mound) which supported the castle is today known as 'Castle Hill'.

Work began on Dover Castle in the latter part of the 12th century with the construction of the Keep (or Great Tower) - the largest in Britain - and is entered through a forebuilding more substantial than any other built before or since. At each corner of the Keep lies a buttress turret, and mid-way along each wall is a pilaster buttress. Four storeys high, the Keep comprises a basement, first floor, and a second floor that spans two storeys, the upper level of which is a mural gallery that can be seen today at the end of the Great Armour Hall. The second storey provided the royal accommodation, and the first floor, based on a similar plan to the second, contained rooms with a much less elaborate decor. All floors were connected by staircases set in the north and south corner turrets.

Providing the entry staircase, and two chapels, is the magnificent forebuilding. It is interesting to note the decor of the chapels - the lower chapel of a Gothic style, and the upper chapel late Norman and richly decorated. From outside of the Keep, the significance of the three-towered forebuilding can be fully appreciated, as it can be seen travelling along the eastern wall of the Keep and turning at the corner of the southern wall. It was around this stronghold that the concentric castle was developed and work was completed mid-13th century.

Dover Castle appears in "Dover in World War Two: 1942", a ten minute British Ministry of Information film, released by the US Office of War Information, and narrated by the American journalist, Edward R. Murrow.

John Latter / Jorolat

Dover Blog: The Psychology of a Small Town

This is the Images of Dover website: click on any blue "John Latter" link to access the Entry Page.

Peverell's Gate (alt. Peverell's Tower) is on Dover Castle's Western Outer Curtain Wall with Gatton Tower (to the south) behind the viewer and the out-of-view Queen Mary Tower in front; the inside of Constable`s Gate is visible through the arch beyond the drawbridge.

The privet fence on the right marks the garden boundary of the Georgian, "Sergeant Major`s House"; from the 17th of July to the 3rd of September, 2009, it cost GBP1351 to stay there for 7 nights (see "prices" on this English Heritage webpage).

Click to see all photos of Dover Castle, an English Heritage site.

Standard Info for Peverell's Gate (Updated 2009)

Extracts from "The History of the Town and Port of Dover and of Dover Castle (With a Short Account of the Cinque Ports)", Volume 2. Dedicated by the Reverend John Lyon, Minister of "Saint Mary`s", on April 21st, 1814, and published the same year:

This tower was built by William Peverell, of Dover, one of the confederate knights; and he had several lordships and manors granted him, in capite, which he held by castle-guard tenure.

Peverell built his tower in the angle of the exterior wall of the Saxon works; and it was constructed for defensive warfare, on every side of it. He had a noble arched gate-way, with a ditch and drawbridge, with several apartments, and over them an embattled platform for the archers.

From the interior front they could command a considerable part of the Saxon vallum; and the whole space was open to them, on the side of the hill, between the Castle and the town.

On the side of the tower, fronting the Keep, there was an arched passage from the principal gateway, for opening a communication with a caponnier (alt. caponier), between two parallel walls, leading up to the Palace Gate. This concealed passage was for a place of defence, and it added a considerable length to the fronts of Peverell's tower. The walls of the caponnier are destroyed from their foundations.

In the year 1771, the whole length of the exterior curtain, from Peverell's to Porth's Tower (ie Queen Mary`s Tower), fell into the ditch, after a very wet season; and the workmen, in digging for a new foundation, discovered the piers of the bridge, before the arched gate-way of Peverell's tower.

Hugh Beauchamp, who commanded in this tower, was also Marshal of the Castle. He was a Norman by descent, and like many of his countrymen, he had the good fortune to procure a considerable landed property in this kingdom.

His arms, cut in a stone shield, were remaining in the front of this tower, until the year 1801, when they were taken away by the order of the engineer; but they have been preserved by one of the gunners of the Castle. Arms - Gules, a fesse betwen six cross crosslets.

The building is now deformed, by taking away the battlements (crenellations), and raising a parapet of brick work; which will never be so durable, as the masonry they have taken down.

Extract from "Dover Castle" by R. Allen Brown (Her Majesty's Stationery Office, HMSO 1974) (Abridged):

Peverell's Gate or Tower marks the juncture of the work of King John and Henry III, and is itself a composite structure of both reigns. It basically consists of a great mural tower with a spurred base, facing the field and backing on to a gateway within the castle facing north and south. Henry III further fortified this gateway by adding a semicircular tower facing south. Within the main passage way of the gate an archway, now blocked, led off at right-angles northwards to the vanished Harcourt Tower. Peverell was further altered about 1300 and the remarkable conical roof, with its king-post to the apex inside, may date from. that time. The original battlemented top was replaced by the present unsightly brick parapet evidently in the early nineteenth century.

Extract from "The History of the Castle, Town and Port of Dover" by Reverend S. P. H. Statham, Rector of St Mary-in-the-Castle (ie St Mary-in-Castro) (Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899):

Peverell's Tower, also called The Marshal's, Beauchamp's, and the Bell Tower. The manors of Wrensted and Throwley in Kent were responsible for the up-keep of this fine tower, which with its arched gateway, ditch (moat) and drawbridge constituted the entrance into the middle ward. At one time it was used as a prison and the residence of the marshal, and hence its name. On the side of the tower fronting the keep there was an arched passage from the main gate, which communicated with the caponiere (alt. caponier, caponnier) leading under Harcourt's Tower. The arms of Hugh Beauchamp, marshal of the Castle, were cut on a stone shield placed on the front of the tower, and were visible in 1801, when the stone was removed. The original battlements have been replaced by a parapet of brick. In 1771 the wall between this tower and Port (ie Port Tower, alt. Laswells, Gostling or Queen Mary`s Tower) fell down, and in digging for a new foundation the piers of the old bridge before the gate were discovered.

Abridged from The English Heritage Trail:

Dover Castle

Guardian of the 'Gateway to England', Dover Castle displays a solid strength and determination that has obviously carried it through many troubled times. Proudly standing atop the White Cliffs, overlooking this busy port, Dover Castle has withstood the test of time remarkably well throughout its long and eventful history. Dover Castle, as it stands today, dates from the rebuilding work during Henry II's reign, but the site has been of vital importance since the Iron Age. The first castle at Dover was probably an Anglo-Saxon fortress and, on the arrival of William the Conqueror, the existing fortifications were improved with the building of an earthwork castle. This Norman 'motte' (mound) which supported the castle is today known as 'Castle Hill'.

Work began on Dover Castle in the latter part of the 12th century with the construction of the Keep (or Great Tower) - the largest in Britain - and is entered through a forebuilding more substantial than any other built before or since. At each corner of the Keep lies a buttress turret, and mid-way along each wall is a pilaster buttress. Four storeys high, the Keep comprises a basement, first floor, and a second floor that spans two storeys, the upper level of which is a mural gallery that can be seen today at the end of the Great Armour Hall. The second storey provided the royal accommodation, and the first floor, based on a similar plan to the second, contained rooms with a much less elaborate decor. All floors were connected by staircases set in the north and south corner turrets.

Providing the entry staircase, and two chapels, is the magnificent forebuilding. It is interesting to note the decor of the chapels - the lower chapel of a Gothic style, and the upper chapel late Norman and richly decorated. From outside of the Keep, the significance of the three-towered forebuilding can be fully appreciated, as it can be seen travelling along the eastern wall of the Keep and turning at the corner of the southern wall. It was around this stronghold that the concentric castle was developed and work was completed mid-13th century.

Dover Castle appears in "Dover in World War Two: 1942", a ten minute British Ministry of Information film, released by the US Office of War Information, and narrated by the American journalist, Edward R. Murrow.

John Latter / Jorolat

Dover Blog: The Psychology of a Small Town

This is the Images of Dover website: click on any blue "John Latter" link to access the Entry Page.