Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

The Drop Redoubt was a key element of the Western Heights fortifications. The original guardhouse was one of the first buildings to be constructed within the fort; it appears as a single building placed centrally within the fort on a number of early plans. This early guard house was demolished before 1813 and the new guardhouse and officers quarters were constructed as part of the 1860’s improvements to the fort. (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on available information)

Monument Types

• GUARDHOUSE (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1805 AD? to 2045 AD?)
• OFFICERS QUARTERS (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1860 AD? to 1945 AD?)

Full description

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The Drop Redoubt was a key element of the Western Heights fortifications. Crossing the area inside the Redoubt today is a covered way linking the Parade Ground with the entrance of the Main Magazine. It is sunk 1.8m for protection and has a large earth bank along its eastern side From it, a flight of stairs leads down to the Guard House and Officers’ Quarters, and a slightly recessed path branches off to the Saluting Battery on the south-eastern side of the terreplein. The original guardhouse was one of the first buildings to be constructed within the fort. It appears as a single building placed centrally within the fort on early plans. This early guard house is demolished by 1813 and the new guardhouse and officers quarters were constructed as part of the 1860’s improvements to the fort. (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on available information)

The vaulted passage from the main entrance emerges into an elongated courtyard, the western and eastern walls of which incorporate the front elevations of two facing ranges of bomb-proofed casemated buildings, the Guard House and Officer’s Quarters respectively. The southern part of the western wall of the courtyard forms the front elevations of three adjacent casemates which comprised the Guard House. A single Guard Room was provided as part of the construction of the redoubt during 1804/5, and is shown on the 1810 and 1860 plans occupying approximately the position of the southernmost casemate of the present three, with steps to the Main Magazine against its northern wall. However, the present Guard House is set back further west than the original, to accommodate a courtyard rather than a sunken passage. The surviving buildings are, therefore, part of the 1858-67 remodelling.

The three casemates are constructed in English bond with the semicircular vaults picked out in buff brick, which is also used for door and window jambs. As there are no obvious changes in brickwork, colour or coursing and no apparent joints, it is reasonable to assume that they are of a single build. The inclusion of identical fittings like cast-iron flap ventilators in the front and rear walls of all the casemates lends support. Each casemate has three high-set small windows with sandstone sills; the central windows are blind and were probably always so, as the brickwork courses through. All the casemates contain set-backs and dwarf walls for suspended timber floors. The central casement has the only entrance to the courtyard, the only fireplace (in the south wall) and the remains of wrought-iron equipment racks attached to all the walls except the front one. This suggests that this room formed the headquarters of the guard and guard commander, with the off-duty guard accommodated in beds under the wrought-iron equipment racks. It is reached by a doorway with a barred fanlight and a substantial timber doorframe in the southern wall of the Guard Room. The interior is divided into two cells served by a passage against the courtyard wall.

The Officers quarters consists of a range of seven adjacent casemates on the eastern side of the courtyard, directly opposite the Guard House, with a smaller eighth casemate in the northern wall forming the Officers’ Latrines. These were all also part of the 1860’s improvements to the fort and there are 7 in total. By 1893 some of the Officers’ Quarters had been converted to a variety of other uses: nos 4 and 5 are successively labelled as Mr (Master) Gunners Quarters and then Md (Married) Quarters; nos 6 and 7 are labelled as Offices. Casemates 4 and 5 are linked by a doorway with a segmental head and a sill at the level of thesuspended floor; this doorway is also shown on the 1881 plan, suggesting these casemates were linked together to form two-room Married Quarters. (summarised from report). (1)

A later plan dating to 1860, shows the interior features of the Drop Redoubt Fort, as they were left in 1815 and immediately before any alterations were made undert the 1860's scheme of improvements. The original guardhouse had been long demolished before this plan was surveyed, though a proposal for the new guradhouse and officers quarters is depicted and consists of a single room on the western side of the sunken passage and 7 on the eastern side. (2)

A plan of the fort which was surveyed in 1858, with annotations from 1871 and 1881, shows the Guard room and Officers Quarters in detail alongside all of the other major additions which were made to the fort under the 1860's scheme of improvements. (2)

<1> English Heritage, 2000, The Western Heights, Dover, Kent. Report No 3 The Drop Redoubt: A 19th-Century Artillery Fortification (Unpublished document). SKE13677.

<2> Unknown, 1860, Drop Redoubt, Dover, Plan, Sections and Elevation Shewing Proposed Alterations And Additions (Map). SKE51528.

<3> War Department, 1871-1881, Dover Drop Redoubt Plan Shewing Occupation (Map). SKE51531.

Sources and further reading

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