Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Between 1804 and 1810 at the latest, the ridge around the redoubt had been carefully scarped to produce massive slopes with steep angles to render an infantry assault hazardous and exhausting. These scarps are clearly visible on the north-west falling to the North Military Road, and to the north-east. (Location accurate the the nearest 1m based on available information)

Monument Types

• SCARP (Post Medieval to Modern - 1804 AD? to 2050 AD?)

Full description

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Between 1804 and 1810 at the latest, the ridge around the redoubt had been carefully scarped to produce massive slopes with steep angles to render an infantry assault hazardous and exhausting. These scarps are clearly visible on the north-west falling to the North Military Road, and to the north-east. The ground between these scarps and the redoubt was also carefully shaped into long gradual slopes so that once the crest of the scarp was reached, an attacker would have been constantly exposed to fire from the parapet: there was no cover. Two parallel linear features comprising a slight scarp on the north and a low bank on the south, run between the north-eastern angle of the redoubt and the apex of the ridge. Both appear quite denuded and may originally have been more sharply defined. The scarp is shown on plans of 1810-1813 and is part of the careful grading of the slope carried out for the Napoleonic works. The bank, however, is on the line of the glacis of the 1780’s and could conceivably be of that date; the flattening was required by later works. Of equal interest is an apparently declivity aligned east west and running away from the redoubt to join another scarp. On plans of the 1810-1813 this is a sharply defined V-shaped ditch, with a couterscarp on the southern side, effectively closing the ground between the redoubt and the scarp edge. Guns on the terreplein would have looked directly along it. This feature is an earlier version of, and was replaced by, the north east line in the 1860’s. (1)

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 Report No 3 The Drop Redoubt: A 19th-Century Artillery Fortification (Unpublished document).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

Sources and further reading

Related records