Exploring Kent's Past

It should not be assumed that this site is publicly accessible and it may be on private property. Do not trespass.

Monument details

Summary

The North Entrance to the Western Heights was situated at a narrow point of the ridge towards the north-eastern end of the fortress, where the North Military Road completed its more moderate ascent from Dover town. The earliest phase of works on this entrance dates to the Napoleonic period, but further work on the North Entrance to complete and modernise it began in in March 1860 and it was finished in February 1864. This created a more elaborate defensive scheme and perhaps reflects a greater concern with a potential assault from the north. Two bridges were constructed in the 1860’s across the new defensive ditches, these were originally timber but were replaced in 1887 by two iron joist and girder construction. (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on available information)

Monument Types

• DRAWBRIDGE (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1863 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• BRIDGE (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1887 AD? to 1945 AD?)

Full description

If you do not understand anything on this page please contact us.

Summarised from report:

The North Entrance to the Western Heights was situated at a narrow point of the ridge towards the north-eastern end of the fortress, where the North Military Road completed its more moderate ascent from Dover town. The earliest phase of works on this entrance dates to the Napoleonic period, but further work on the North Entrance to complete and modernise it began in in March 1860 and it was finished in February 1864. This created a more elaborate defensive scheme and perhaps reflects a greater concern with a potential assault from the north. Two bridges were constructed in the 1860’s across the new defensive ditches, these were originally timber but were replaced in 1887 by two iron joist and girder construction.

The new, stronger, iron bridges which were installed was to enable the safe passage of horse teams pulling heavy artillery pieces and limbers. The outer bridge consisted of a fixed span for the outermost two thirds and a drawbridge forming the inner third. Part of the fixed span survives, comprising ‘I’ section girders with a few remaining joists which formerly supported a road bed of wooden planking. The drawbridge was pivoted at the inner end so that it could be lowered in a controlled movement into the ditch, coming to rest in a set back in the wall of the tenaille. To hold the drawbridge open a form of latch - a canting transom - was pivoted in cast-iron blocks bolted to the stone coping of brick piers.
When ropes attached at the tenaille end pulled the connecting rods the pivot moved the transom and it swung down and unlatched the drawbridge, which could then swing down into the ditch. This method of operation enabled a defending force to quickly lower the drawbridge, since it was faster than having to hoist a bridge. The drawbridge was replaced by the current fixed span of steel ‘I’ section beams, probably during the Second World War or in the 1950s. The inner bridge also had a fixed span but the moving span comprised a true drawbridge which survives in situ. It is likely that this moveable part of the bridge pre dates the rebuilding of 1887, and is part of the 1863 phase of works at the entrance. The drawbridge rested on a brick pier and had its pivot in an entrance chamber recessed into the curtain wall. A ratchet is attached to the western end of the pivot rod, probably to retain the bridge once it had been raised. (1)

A set of plans, elevations and sections dating to 1887 shows the improvements which were made to both the inner and outer bridges at the North Entrance to the Western Heights in that year. (2)

<1> RCHME, 2000, The Western Heights, Dover, Kent. Report No 6: The Entrances to the Fortress: 19th-century artillery fortifications (Unpublished document). SKE17501.

<2> Royal Engineers, 1887, Plans, elevations, sections and details of proposed new bridges at the north entrance to Western Heights (Plan). SKE51620.

Sources and further reading

Related records