Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

The South flank casemates at the Western Outworks of the Citadel were built as defensible casemated barracks, their small arms galleries serving to prevent an enemy force from gaining offensive positions in the ditch and on the counterscarp. They are positioned in the re-entrant where the South Flank meets the South Ditch. They are constructed against the rock-cut scarp face of the ditch, forming its revetment, in two ranges arranged at right-angles to one another (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on available information).

Monument Types

• ABLUTIONS BLOCK (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1871 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• BARRACKS (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1871 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• BATH HOUSE (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1871 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• CASEMATE (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1871 AD? to 1945 AD?)

Full description

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Summarised from report:

The South flank casemates at the Western Outworks of the Citadel were built as defensible casemated barracks, their small arms galleries serving to prevent an enemy force from gaining offensive positions in the ditch and on the counterscarp. They are positioned in the re-entrant where the South Flank meets the South Ditch. They are constructed against the rock-cut scarp face of the ditch, forming its revetment, in two ranges arranged at right-angles to one another. The larger of the two ranges, oriented roughly north-east to south-west, provided casemated barrack rooms on two basement levels, the lower of which has a floor level more than a storey’s height above the bottom of the ditch. Throughout the South Flank Casemates most of the timber features and other fixtures have been removed, but the brick shells are intact, together with vestiges of some fixtures and fittings. The walls are faced with yellowish-brown bricks known as grey stocks. The barracks occupy five bays from north-east to south-west, the divisions being formed by transverse brick walls 1.31m (4ft 3½in) thick. The narrower north-eastern bay incorporates the stair and circulation space linking the barracks with the small arms galleries, while the remaining four bays each provide a barrack room on each level. Two plans of 1897 indicate that the lower rooms housed eleven men each while the upper rooms housed ten. The passage linking the four barrack rooms on each floor was positioned along the rear wall and care was taken to ensure adequate light and ventilation. The other uses of the galleries are indicated on the 1897 plan. This shows the lower level given over to Ablutions, with a Bath House in the south-eastern casemate. The Cook House occupied the upper level, with a coal store in one corner of the north-western casemate, a sink in the corner of the central one, benches against the rear wall of both and what may have been the cooking range against the south-east end of the south-eastern casemate. (1)

Detail of the Western Outworks appears on a plan dating to 1871 which shows all of the works which were undertaken under the reccomendations of the Royal Commission. (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

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