Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Within the walls of the middle bailey at Dover Castle, which when completed would have extended from Peverell’s Tower to the west and Ashford Tower to the east, there would have been a barbican located on the south eastern side of the Palace Gate, this has since been lost. (location accurate to the nearest 10m based on available information)

Monument Types

• BARBICAN (Demolished, Medieval to Post Medieval - 1199 AD? to 1800 AD?)
• TOWER (Demolished, Medieval to Post Medieval - 1199 AD? to 1800 AD?)
• WALL (Demolished, Medieval to Post Medieval - 1199 AD? to 1800 AD?)

Full description

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Within the walls of the middle bailey at Dover Castle, which when completed would have extended from Peverell’s Tower to the west and Ashford Tower to the east, there would have been a barbican located on the south eastern side of the Palace Gate, this has since been lost.

The barbican is recorded in John Bereblock’s illustration of the inner bailey in the 1560s which depicts an elaborate barbican arrangement with gates, curtain walls and towers controlling the approach to the Palace Gate from the west (Peverell’s Gate) and east sides (Pencester Tower). Bereblock shows parallel walls from an outer to an inner gate of Harcourt Tower, apparently crossing a ditch and landing at the point where ‘Harold Road’ now approaches the car park at the end of the curtain wall. Bereblock then has two short lengths of curtain with two towers, and a long curtain extending to the North Gate; only the second tower is labelled ‘Putei propugnaculum’ (Well Tower), and the number for the Old Armoury ‘Armamentarium Vetus’ is drawn against a tower of the inner bailey. (1) Aside from this depiction the barbican is poorly recorded and its exact date is unknown though it is likely of an early C13th date, perhaps to the reign of King John (1199-1216). Military plans of the castle show the barbican in an dilapidated state in c.1800 and the walls were partly removed for the creation of the Bell Battery, and their site later occupied by 19th-century barracks. Since Rigold’s excavation trenches following the removal of the Victorian barracks found traces of the ditch but not the walls, it remains uncertain where these features were and if any other remains have survived 18th and 19th-century building and engineering activity. (summarised from sources) (2-4)

It seems certain that, in spite of the re- entrant junction on the west, the south barbican was originally part of the Inner Bailey, and it is likely that it was earth walled before it was ditched on the southern side, and that it was provided with towers. With the completion of the curtain and the construction of the Palace gate, the relatively strong tower uncovered during excavations within the barbican between 1964 and 1966 gave place to the small and less well defended Arthurs gate whose function declines further with the building of the eastern traverse work and the adaptation of Pencesters tower at its outer entrance. (5)

<1> John Bereblock, 1570, John Bereblock's view of Dover Castle (Cartographic materials). SKE52107.

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

<3> English Heritage, 2014, Dover Castle Conservation Management Plan Volume 2 Gazetteer (Unpublished document). SKE52105.

<4> A. M. Cook, D. C. Mynard, & S. E. Rigold, 1969, Excavations at Dover Castle, Principally in the Inner Bailey A. M. Cook, D. C. Mynard, &S. E. Rigold (Article in serial). SKE52108.

<5> S. E. Rigold, 1967, Excavations at Dover Castle 1964-1966 (Article in serial). SKE52109.

Sources and further reading

Related records