Discover 2000 years of history at Dover Castle
Dover Castle’s position, commanding the shortest sea crossing between England and the Continent, has given it immense strategic importance. The chalk of Castle Hill has been shaped and reshaped over the centuries into massive earthworks, ditches and mounds. Imposing walls and towers have been raised and networks of tunnels built beneath them. King Henry II began the building of the present castle in the 1180s, and over the next 800 years its buildings and defences were adapted to meet the changing demands of weapons and warfare.
Many centuries before King Henry II began the great stone castle here in the 1180s, its spectacular site above the famous white cliffs may well have been the site of an Iron Age hillfort.
The Romans built a lighthouse – one of the best-preserved in Europe – on the heights here after they invaded in AD 43, to guide ships into the harbour. The Anglo-Saxon church beside the lighthouse was once probably part of a Saxon fortified settlement. Restored in the late 19th century by Sir George Gilbert Scott and William Butterfield, it is the largest and finest Saxon building in Kent.
Immediately after his victory at Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror strengthened the defences with an earthwork and timber-stockaded castle. From then on Dover Castle was garrisoned without interruption until 1958.
In the 1180s Henry II remodelled the castle, planning its great tower as a palace in which to entertain great visitors as well as a last redoubt for a strategically important castle. At 83 feet (25.3 metres) high, just under 100 feet (30 metres) square and with walls up to 21 feet (6.5 metres) thick, it has three floors of rooms, the topmost being state apartments for the king himself.
Within this magnificent showpiece, Henry could welcome and impress distinguished visitors to England – particularly noble pilgrims travelling to the new shrine in Canterbury Cathedral of Thomas Becket. The archbishop was slaughtered in front of the altar there by Henry’s household knights on 29 December 1170, ten years before the great tower was begun. On the second floor of the great tower is a chapel dedicated to Becket, with richly decorated stonework.
Building work continued in the first half of the 13th century under King John and Henry III, who completed the successive rings of defensive walls surrounding the great tower.
In 1216–17 these defences were twice put to the test when Dover withstood a long siege by an invasion force led by Prince Louis of France in support of English barons rebelling against King John. The fortress resisted ten months of bombardment by siege engines, undermining by tunnels and eventually hand-to-hand fighting.
After the Middle Ages Dover was continuously garrisoned into the 20th century. Although it declined in importance from the 16th century, it still hosted royal visits by Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and Charles I’s queen, Henrietta Maria.
From the 1740s onwards the medieval banks and ditches were reshaped as the castle was adapted for artillery warfare. Later in the 18th century, when England faced the threat of invasion from Napoleonic France, even more spectacular additions were made to the castle’s defences. To house the huge numbers of troops needed to man them, a network of tunnels was dug in from the cliff face for use as barracks.
By 1905 advances in technology made it possible for coastal artillery around the harbour to be controlled from a central Fire Command Post built on the cliff edge. Its commanding position led the Admiralty to site a signal station on top of it in 1914, from which the Navy controlled the movement of all ships in and out of the harbour.
