Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Incorporated into the terreplein above the barracks within the South Flank Casemates are four casemates for artillery, with a magazine in a sunken gorge behind. These were intended to mount carronades to flank the South Ditch, counterscarp and glaçis. (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on availabe information)

Monument Types

• CASEMATE (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1871 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• MAGAZINE (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1871 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• OFFICERS QUARTERS (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1871 AD? to 1945 AD?)

Full description

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Summarised from report:

Incorporated into the terreplein above the barracks within the South Flank Casemates are four casemates for artillery, with a magazine in a sunken gorge behind. These were intended to mount carronades to flank the South Ditch, counterscarp and glaçis. These were served by a magazine on the opposite side of a sunken courtyard in the gorge. The lower level of these casemates were occupied by Soldiers barracks (discussed in further detail in TR 34 SW 2039) but the upper level was referred to on an original plan of the complex as ‘Haxo casemates’, a type usually open to the rear, but from the outset these appear to have been enclosed to double as Officers’ Quarters and a plan dating to 1897 notes that they housed ten men. The smaller range comprises two small arms galleries, each with three small casemates, that open south-eastwards from the north-east end of the two barrack floors of the main range. They served to flank the main range and the ditch. (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 English Heritage, 2004, The Western Heights, Dover, Kent: Report No. 2: The Citadel (Unpublished document).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

Related records