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 completed battery comprised three deep concrete gun emplacements with ammunition stores between them. The ammunition stores were contained in four buildings of cavity wall construction, comprising a mass concrete core with a skin of yellow stock brick. (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on available information)

Monument Types

• AMMUNITION DUMP (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 completed battery comprised three deep concrete gun emplacements with ammunition stores between them. The three guns were served by ammunition stores contained in four buildings of cavity wall construction, comprising a mass concrete core with a skin of yellow stock brick. The stores are placed between and flanking the emplacements, with entrances to the rear directly off the covered way; for each gun, there was a shell store immediately to the south-west and a cartridge store to the north-east. Three of the buildings have porched entrances and all have canted elevations. They are decoratively finished with a dentilled course below two projecting courses at eaves level, which was carried down and round into the emplacement walls. The porches have opposing doorways in the side walls with brick arches, formerly over strong wooden double doors, and small rendered plaques over the arches identified each store. The north-west walls of each porch had two ventilator outlets topped by shallow segmental arches of two header courses and probably originally with airbricks, but the latter have been replaced by metal vent pipes of Second World War date. Inside, each porch comprises a semi-circular vaulted passage, with a cupboard recess in the north-west wall and the entrances to the stores opposite. The stores entrances are of a uniform size and all have Portland stone lintels and corners neatly finished in rounded brickwork. The double doors were recessed and opened internally but only the frames, or scars of them, survive. Adjacent to the doors in all stores are lamp recesses running through the wall thickness, each around 0.55m high, 0.40m wide and 0.66m deep. The cartridge stores also have issue hatches, which, like the lamp recesses, have Portland stone sills and lintels. Set into the curved external corner of each shell store, at the junction with the respective gun emplacement, is a shallow rebate for a small davit. The metal sockets for these davits survive for nos II and III guns, set 0.96m and 2.26m above the ground. The davits were for lifting the heavy shells from the stores directly onto the trolleys. Inside, the stores are of cavity-wall construction, in yellow stock brick laid to English bond, with elaborate red airbricks at the ends of the cavities. There is a single ventilation pipe, usually ceramic, in the ceiling of each store. The walls are whitewashed and the floors are of concrete. (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

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