Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

The long casemates are located on the south western corner of the Citadel and were designed to defend the ditch at the south western end of the tenaille. They were constructed in the early phase of the forts development, and likley completed by around 1810. The group consists of two pairs of two-storeyed casemates, situated to the north and south of what was originally a deeply sunken area serving as a light well. (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on available information).

Monument Types

• BARRACKS (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1808 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• CASEMATE (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1808 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• COOKHOUSE (Disused, Post Medieval - 1808 AD? to 1853 AD?)
• STOREHOUSE (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1853 AD? to 1945 AD?)

Full description

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Summarised from report:

The long casemates are located on the south western corner of the Citadel and were designed to defend the ditch at the south western end of the tenaille. A working plan dated December 1808 depicting progress as a whole, shows that at this point the Long Casemates were in an advanced state but only two of four sets covering the whole west ditch had been completed. The group consists of two pairs of two-storeyed casemates, situated to the north and south of what was originally a deeply sunken area serving as a light well. Each level was numbered clockwise on plan, beginning at the north-west corner of the lower level. the northern pair, which are considerably shorter with a thicker spine wall, had been excavated and were described as Cooking Casemates, though later evidence suggests more varied use. The original point of access was from the east via a brick-lined gallery, now entered through a replacement revetment wall built in the 1850s/60s, to the south-west of the Officers’ Mess. The southern accommodated 34 or 35 men apiece (including the occupant of a Sergeant’s bunk, partitioned off in one corner of at least one room), compared with 23 in the upper rooms of the northern casemates. The new work proposed in 1853 may have included subdividing the upper level of the northern casemates, which appear to have been turned into stores. In 1897, all four rooms in the southern casemates were used as barracks, the upper pair for 31 men each and the lower pair for 28 men each. By 1911, the upper rooms of the southern casemates still accommodated 31 men each, while the lower rooms formed a basement; the upper rooms of the northern casemates had been converted to stores, each one partitioned to provide a small room at the southern end which formed a Signal Store and a Lecture Room respectively. In 1929 the entire lower level was disused with the exception of the Ablutions Room; on the upper level the two southern rooms each housed 26 men. Today, the area of these Napoleonic casemated barracks, in the south-western part of the Citadel, has been filled with debris and the entrances blocked, leaving only the southern elevation of the southern pair visible. (1)

A plan dating to 1811 which details the extent of the Napoleonic works which were undertaken at the Citadel, shows these casemates. (2)

A further plan dating to 1911, with annotations from 1929 and 1947 shows the casemates in great detail and inlcudes interior features and labels. (3)

<1> English Heritage, 2004, The Western Heights, Dover, Kent: Report No. 2: The Citadel (Unpublished document). SKE17690.

<2> Major W H Ford, Royal Engineers, 1811, Plan Shewing the Appropriation of the Ordnance Lands on the Western Heights Dover 1811 (Map). SKE51523.

<3> Unknown, 1911, Dover Western Heights, Citadel Barracks & Western Outworks Ground Floor Plan (Map). SKE51525.

Sources and further reading

Related records