Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Behind the scarp revetments there are three long galleries incorporating casemated rooms for both musketry and carronades, all for the defence of the ditch. These are constructed mainly in brick laid to English bond, usually with axial semi-circular vaults of stretchers, invariably whitewashed. The north Musketry gallery consists of 26 casemates and a single horizontal musket loop flanking the east face of the caponier. (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on available information)

Monument Types

• CASEMATE (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1862 AD? to 1945 AD?)

Full description

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(summarised from report)

Behind the scarp revetments there are three long galleries incorporating casemated rooms for both musketry and carronades, all for the defence of the ditch. These are constructed mainly in brick laid to English bond, usually with axial semi-circular vaults of stretchers, invariably whitewashed. Each casemate has at least one small square smoke vent, situated in the front wall at the apex with the vault. The floors are usually concreted, stone is used for load-bearing, notably for lintels to doorways (gritstone) where there are structural elements above. The musket loops are mainly brick, stepped and splayed in profile and plan, the splay varying according to the ground covered in the ditches. The apertures can be either horizontal or vertical, the former utilised to cover straight sections of ditch, the latter to cover the angled faces of the revetments. Most loops have a shallow segmental arched head with a relieving arch of two or three header courses. Cut sandstone is used for the lintels of the horizontal loops.

At its east end, the west musketry gallery divides. One branch leads into Detached Bastion through the south caponier; the other connects directly with the north musketry gallery. There, twelve brick steps lead up through the first of 26 casemates, which also contains a single horizontal musket loop flanking the east face of the caponier. The gallery proceeds through the centre of the party walls to each casemate, via flat-headed openings capped by large gritstone lintels like those in the western section of the west musketry gallery. Each casemate has an unfaced rear wall of chalk rock
and a single horizontal musket loop in the front wall, looking straight into the cross ditch. (1)

<1> RCHME, 2001, The Western Heights, Dover, Kent. Report No 7: North Centre and Detached Bastions: 19th-century fortifications (Unpublished document). SKE17503.

Sources and further reading

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