Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

The entrance to the Citadel at this location was first implemented in the Napoleonic phase of works on the site. A proposal plan dating to 1809 shows an entrance close to the site of the current eastern entrance, though this was only a simple revetted passage and it is likely that the entrance as visible today was begun in the late 1850’s. This structure is a casemated and bombproof structure built of yellowish grey stock brick in English bond, providing the only vehicular entrance to the Citadel. (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on available information)

Monument Types

• CELL (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1853 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• GATEHOUSE (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1853 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• GUARDHOUSE (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1853 AD? to 1945 AD?)

Full description

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Summarised from report:

The present Main Entrance replaced an earlier one which passed through the gorge rampart further to the north. A proposal plan, dated October 1809, shows the old entrance and a new one close to the present Main Entrance; both are simple revetted passages reached via bridges over the gorge ditch. That work on the new entrance was started and abandoned before the end of the Napoleonic Wars is suggested by the labelling of a ‘breach’ on a plan of 1813 and confirmed by a clear break in both rampart and ditch on another plan of 1830. It was presumably this breach that was made good in works approved in March 1853.

As visible today, the Main Entrance was begun in the late 1850s and is depicted on the 1871 plan of the Citadel. It is a casemated and bombproof structure, built of yellowish grey stock brick in English bond, providing the only vehicular entrance to the Citadel. Set into the gorge rampart, it was originally approached across the gorge ditch on a bridge with a lifting span that closed against an outer gateway. This outer opening was protected by a pair of strong doors, which gave onto a vaulted tunnel through the rampart. The tunnel leads to an inner gateway with a second pair of doors. A gatehouse rose over the outer section of the tunnel, its east elevation carried up from the ditch scarp revetment, while from the inner, wider section of the tunnel, doorways in the north-west and south-east walls led into flanking casemates which together formed the Guard Room. These were built in the body of the rampart but presented an elaborate south-west elevation, incorporating the inner gateway, facing onto the Parade Ground.

The building has an irregular four-bay plan, of which a single bay forms the tunnel through the rampart to the outer gateway. The four-bay south-west elevation was originally flanked by westward projecting revetment walls, of which the northern example survives. The three southern bays form a symmetrical grouping, within which the narrower central bay, through which the tunnel passes, projects slightly and rises above the other two. The north-western bay is set apart by its lower eaves level, and does not extend as far back into the rampart. The inner gateway is flanked by segmental-vaulted casemates, two to the north-west and one to the south-east. These have been extensively modified internally, but incorporated a Guard Room, an Officers’ Guard Room and Cells. (1)

Detail of this structure appears on a plan dating to 1871 which shows all of the works which were undertaken under the reccomendations of the Royal Commission, though this structure likley pre dates this plan by about 20 years. (2)

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

<2> Captain H S Palmer (?), 1871, War Department OS 1:2500 Sheet LXVIII.15, revision of 1871, annotated with positions of magazines in the Citadel in 1877 (Map). SKE51524.

Sources and further reading