Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

This magazine was constructed of yellow stock brick laid in English bond at some point between 1858 and 1862. It fell out of use when the Drop Battery was disarmed in 1886. It was a main magazine, designated Western Heights ‘G’ in 1882. It is situated under the rampart of the North-east Line, on the north eastern side of Drop Battery and is approached via a vertical entrance façade cut into the base of the rampart, flanked by brick side walls ramped to the earthwork profile. (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on available information)

Monument Types

• MAGAZINE (Disused, Post Medieval - 1859 AD? to 1886 AD?)

Full description

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Summarised from report:

This magazine was constructed of yellow stock brick laid in English bond, at some point between 1858 and 1862, it fell out of use when the Drop Battery was disarmed in 1886. It was a main magazine, designated Western Heights ‘G’ in 1882. It is situated under the rampart of the North-east Line, on the north eastern side of Drop Battery and is approached via a vertical entrance façade cut into the base of the rampart, flanked by brick side walls ramped to the earthwork profile. From the entrance there is a semicircular-vaulted magazine passage, leading north-eastward for some 12.5m, and 1.35m wide. It proceeds straight to the magazine but has a side passage to the north, leading to expense magazine no 1. The lamp passage is 5.65m long and only 0.36m wide; it has a half vault, the lower side to the south and its north wall contains a central lamp recess serving the magazine. The magazine is a rectangular chamber 5.47m by 3.82m with an axial semi-circular vault. The doorway is flat-headed with a stone lintel, rebated externally for double outward-opening wooden doors. The floor was timber boarded on low sill walls; the boards have gone but the sills remain. (1)

A plan dating to 1882 shows the interior layout of this magazine (2)

<1> RCHME, 2001, The Western Heights, Dover, Kent. Report No 10: Miscellaneous Structures 1850-1945 (Unpublished document). SKE17506.

<2> Royal Engineers, 1882, Plans and elevations of magazines and cartridge stores at Western Heights (Plan). SKE51614.

Sources and further reading

Related records