Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

The north-west caponier is two-storey caponier which projects from the north-west angle of the bastion and thereby provided enfilade fire for the north and west ditches from embrasures and loopholes in its flank walls. The vertical walls are continuous with and rise to the full height of the scarp revetment, in stock brick laid to English bond. (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on available information)

Monument Types

• CAPONIER (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1860 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• MAGAZINE (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1860 AD? to 1945 AD?)

Full description

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Summarised from report:

The north-west caponier is two-storey caponier which projects from the north-west angle of the bastion and thereby provided enfilade fire for the north and west ditches from embrasures and loopholes in its flank walls. The vertical walls are continuous with and rise to the full height of the scarp revetment, in stock brick laid to English bond, and there are brick gutters behind the capping course. The flank walls splay outward from the body of the bastion and were themselves protected by enfilade fire from the west and north musketry galleries. The north, or face wall of the caponier is finished as a very shallow outward chevron and is loopholed to protect the curved section of the ditch. At each corner of the face wall are triangular-shaped buttresses with sandstone capping courses. The shape of the buttresses prevented the corners, and the area between the arches, becoming ‘blind spots’ which could be used as lodgements by an attacker. In all respects, this design is identical to the caponiers constructed at the same time at the Drop Redoubt. The roof is bombproofed by means of a flat-topped steeply-scarped earthwork of chalk and soil, pierced only by the truncated brick columns of the chimney stacks and ventilators from the casemates below. Inside, the base of the west gallery leads into the rear of the caponier through a semi-circular arch and forms a passage linking to the north musketry gallery. The main body of the caponier is composed of two semicircular-vaulted, two-storey casemates constructed with the vaulting running at right angles to the flank walls. The ground floor is stone flagged. The first floor has wide galleried walkways, formed of slate slabs, running from a landing over the rear passage through the arched openings and along the flank walls, through the second pair of arches between the casemates and then along the north wall. The walls are pierced by embrasures and loopholes on both floors. There is no documentary record of the use of this caponier as troop accommodation here but it remains a possibility. The caponier’s expense magazine is of the usual type and is situated to the rear, cut from the natural chalk for additional protection against enemy fire. (1)

A plan dating to 1862 shows the bastion after the major improvements have been made and includes details of the caponiers, gun emplacements and some of the interior structures. (2)

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

<2> Office of Works, 1862, Plan showing the improvements to the defences for Dover at the North Centre Bastion at the Western Heights (Plan). SKE51590.

Sources and further reading

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