Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

St Martins Battery is a situated on a bluff near the cliff edge overlooking the Western Docks of Dover harbour and was constructed between 1874 and 1877. The glacis is the external slope of the battery which carefully and gradually extended in a long slope to ground level, and designed to absorb in-coming shell fire. (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on available information)

Monument Types

• GLACIS (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1874 AD? to 1944 AD?)

Full description

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Summarised from report:

St Martins Battery is a situated on a bluff near the cliff edge overlooking the Western Docks of Dover harbour and was constructed between 1874 and 1877. The glacis is the external slope of the battery which carefully and gradually extended in a long slope to ground level, and designed to absorb in-coming shell fire. The glaçis of the battery survives in a relatively unmodified state: only at the south-west end has it been smoothed and levelled by works associated with the present car park. It is a moderate earthen slope, 1.5-3.0m high, most prominent on the south-west where the natural slope falls away more steeply. (1)

A plan dating to 1877 shows the battery as it was constructed and completed in that year and includes details of the, gun emplacements, the earthworks surrounding the battery, interior features of the ammunition stores as well and cross sections of all the features. (2)

<1> RCHME, 2000, The Western Heights, Dover, Kent. Report No 5: St Martin's Battery, 19th and 20th-century artillery battery (Unpublished document). SKE17500.

<2> Royal Engineers, 1877, Hand-tinted sections and plans of St Martin's Battery at Western Heights (Plan). SKE51593.

Sources and further reading

Related records