There was a second building program on the Heights during the 1850’s and 1860’s due to yet another invasion scare by yet another Napoleon. A Royal Commission was set up to look into the defences of the United Kingdom and recommend improvements thereto.
It was then that the modern Drop Redoubt that we know today was finished; The four caponiers were added, as were bombproof officers’ quarters, the ditch running from the redoubt to the cliff edge, and the main magazine was strengthened. The four caponniers were added to enable enfilading fire along each ditch. These were not just stuck on the corners of the redoubt, but ‘knitted’ into the brickwork along with corresponding ‘bulges’ in the counterscarp walls. The barracks provided accommodation for 4 officers and 90 men.
Left: Number 1 caponnier from North Right Lines Battery Right: Number 4 caponnier
Left: Number 4 caponnier and Town Ditch gunrooms from the 1860s building phase, Right: It is possible to see how the caponniers were stitched into the existing brickwork. I've highlighted it for you but it is very visible if you go to the site
At around the same time as the Caponniers were being added to the Drop Redoubt and other modernisation programs were being carried out around the Heights a new battery was being built along the North Lines. This was again because it was thought the whole hill to be weak should an attack come from the north or north-west.
The new North Lines Right Battery
North Lines Right Battery from the Drop Redoubt
A War Department map updated to 1893 shows Grand Shaft Barracks comprising a recreation room, reading room, coffee bar, ball court, skittle alley, wash house, cook house, workshop, meat store, library, gymnasium, latrines, officers’ quarters, and the barracks also had a stable block. Many of these features being from a later building period.
Looking down towards the harbour at Grand Shaft Barracks in 1964 (KM Picture). In this picture are the Troop Stable, Gymnasium, Field Officers' Quarters then two men's barrack ranges.
St. Martin’s Battery was originally a Victorian gun battery which was modified during world war 2 to take more modern ordnance with better protection from attack. The original weapons as fitted were 10" RML’s, rifled muzzle loaders. This meant that the barrels were internally rifled thus providing a greater range and accuracy; these guns were also loaded from the muzzle end of the barrel by the use of lifting equipment. There were three 10" RML’s fitted at this battery.
Guns similar to this Victorian 64 pdr RML mounted in Australia would have been mounted at North Lines Right Battery and at St. Martin's Battery
In 1890 a magazine was built to the rear of the battery by cutting into the earth bank.
The North Entrance and Archcliffe Gate were the main security points for traffic travelling into the fortress from North and South Military Roads, respectively.
The North Entrance comprises two bridges running over the ditch separated by a central tenaille or 'island'. The inner bridge was retractable, much like a mediaeval drawbridge. The other side of this is a road tunnel cut through the chalk that comes out inside the fortified Heights.
Left: The garrison end of the North Entrance, 2000 Right: The outer end (B&W KM Picture), 1964 & 2000
Inside the enfilading gunrooms deep within North Entrance
Archcliffe Gate was the main entrance to the Western Heights from the west via South Military Road. The defensive ditch that passes below the road bridge above, ran down to the cliff edge and now terminates above Hammond's garage on Limekiln Street. It is the section of ditch that the Royal Military Hospital sally port cuts across.
Left: Archcliffe Gate at the South Entrance of the Heights (John Peverley 1957) now demolished, Right: Gate removed to widen the road, 2000
Citadel battery is situated at the western-most point of Western Heights defences and was started in 1898 for three 9.2 inch breech loading guns. At the same time a similar battery was installed behind Dover Castle at Langdon cliffs, here three 9.2 inch guns were installed together with two 6 inch weapons. These were coast defence guns.
Citadel Battery
In front of Citadel Battery is a mini defensible ditch which starts to the right of gun one and runs along the front of the battery and terminates by running into the Western Outworks southern ditch. Most of the steel palisade fence striding the ditch can still be seen.
The actual guns for both batteries seem to have taken some time in getting to Dover. In June 1900 the Dover Express reported that the three guns had still not been delivered to Dover and the reason for this apparently, was that the Wellington Dock which had the only crane capable of lifting these guns was undergoing extensive repairs.
The Express reported again in April 1901 that one gun for Citadel Battery and several mountings had been delivered to Dover that month although progress was hampered somewhat by an accident while unloading at the quayside. The paper states that one of the chains being used to lift the gun from the barge, the S.S. Cheviout, snapped which allowed one end of the gun to drop, smashing into the hold of the barge, damaging it and causing water to pour in. Apparently pumps were used to keep the water level down while temporary repairs were effected and the whole episode finished in not only removing the gun and mountings but by there being an official enquiry into the accident by the military authorities.
The probable cost of repairs to the barge were estimated at £2000; quite a sum in 1901.
The western Outwork situated to the west of the Citadel can be identified as two distinct building phases, the main work being built during the period 1858 to 1860 and that of the Citadel Battery between 1898-1900.
Buildings at Western Outworks
Aerial view of Western Outworks
A renewed fear of invasion gripped the country during the 1850’s when Napoleon III came into power in France at a time when the sailing warship was slowly being replaced by the steam warship which was later to wear armour plating and vast improvements in ordnance were rendering existing fortifications obsolete.
It was generally felt by the military minded that if a landward attack was to come upon Western Heights, then it would come from what was regarded by many as the ‘dead’ ground to the west. This had not been overlooked during the initial building phase when the construction of the Citadel was under way; indeed this same theory accounts for the positioning of the Citadel’s massive Outer Bastion projecting to the north-west.
The casemated barracks on the south side of the hill were larger than those of the northern. They were divided into eight separate barrack rooms each with a fireplace and at the end of each flight of stairs, an ablutions block. Above the vaulted bombproof roofs were Sergeants’ rooms, Company store and Company office, all of which doubled up as gun emplacements.
The largely derelict Southern Barracks at Western Outworks
On March 13, 1903 the Dover Express reported that...
"...The barrack accommodation at Dover is not only inadequate but bad in quality, so bad that a considerable portion of it is now closed...Then the South Front Barracks are altogether too small for a battalion of anything like authorised strength..."
The barracks were supplied with fresh water from their own dedicated underground water storage tanks. These were three massive brick-lined reservoirs. Here are a couple of pictures of inside one of the tanks today. They are still full. The total capacity of the three combined was/is some 100,000 gallons of water. Bet it tasted horrible !
The whole area known as 'Archcliffe' is much larger than just the site of Archcliffe Fort. It encompasses the sites of a Military Hospital, Archcliffe Yard, an RASC establishment, and a Military Prison. It is difficult to totally separate these areas so they will be dealt with largely as one. I have to date been able to find very little evidence for Archcliffe Yard and even less for the Military Prison, but what I do have will be shared here.
Archcliffe Yard was on a site opposite Archcliffe Fort, and south-west to the Hospital. The yard was a service establishment for the military and included stables and other utilities.
There is a sally-port and tunnel between the hospital and St. Martin's Battery. As the hospital is actually outside the fortress as such, that is, when the various drawbridges and gates are closed the hospital can still be accessed from the streets of Dover, it must have been necessary to build a route into the fort which bypassed the South Military Road. This sally-port allowed the occupants of the hospital a direct route to withdraw into the complex.
This route itself comprised steps up the hill next to the Archcliffe Gate ditch, across a small drawbridge and up a long, stepped passage. The ends of the passage were secured by defensible doors at the lower end and a fancy set of iron gates at the top. The passage came out just forward of St. Martin's Battery.