Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

The Prince of Wales Royal Regimental Museum (Northern building) which is located on the northern side of the inner bailey, to the west of Arthurs Hall was constructed in the 1740s as accommodation for enlisted men within the barracks, as a response to a perceived threat to Britain from the continent. It appears to have been built upon a ruinous medieval single-storey building which may have been a part of the ‘Old Hall’ that dates from the reign of King John (1199-1216). (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on available information)

Monument Types

• BARRACKS (Disused, Post Medieval - 1745 AD to 1870 AD?)
• STOREHOUSE (Post Medieval to Modern - 1870 AD to 1960 AD?)

Full description

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The Prince of Wales Royal Regimental Museum (northern building) which is located on the northern side of the inner bailey, to the west of Arthurs Hall is one of the buildings within the inner bailey that appear as a group of mid-18th-century barrack blocks with a reasonably homogenous character. It is likely however that a building originated here in the C13th century as the ‘Old Hall’. The surviving walls are a mix of C13th, C18th and C19th century date.

Most of the structure dates to the 1740’s and a powder magazine was shown here on pre-1745-55 map. It appears to have been built upon a ruinous medieval single-storey building which may have been a part of the ‘Old Hall’ that dates from the reign of King John (1199-1216). (1-2)

The archaeological excavations carried out by Stuart Rigold, Alan Cook and others in 1967 and 1968 demonstrated that while some of the current buildings occupy the sites of the medieval structures, much of the upstanding fabric fronting onto inner bailey represents a rebuilding, not always on the exact alignment of the medieval originals. In no case can it be assumed uncritically that the volume of the present building is a fair reflection of the 13th-century predecessor, and in the case of the officers’ barracks, running between the north east angle of inner bailey and Palace Gate, the tall narrow buildings follow a proportional system characteristic of Georgian architecture but alien to the medieval tradition.

Its fabric suggests that until the 18th century this building was single-storied. Its front wall has three distinct phases. The ground floor of the main façade is in irregular rubble and on the southern gable end there is some rubble rising to just above ground-floor level, as if it contains the remnant of a gable. Above this the building was raised in the mid-18th century barracks phase and the top part of the façade was added probably around 1900. (3)

A building in this location appears on the c.1570 drawing of Dover Castle by John Bereblock. (4)

<1> English Heritage, 2014, Dover Castle Conservation Management Plan Volume 2 Gazetteer (Unpublished document). SKE52105.

<2> Johnathan Coad, 1995, English Heritage Book of Dover Castle and the Defences of Dover (Monograph). SKE52106.

<3> English Heritage, 2010, Inner Bailey, Dover Castle, Kent; Historic Buildings Report (Unpublished document). SKE31743.

<4> John Bereblock, 1570, John Bereblock's view of Dover Castle (Cartographic materials). SKE52107.

Sources and further reading

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