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Monument details

HER Number:TR 34 SW 2121
Type of record:Monument
Name:St. Martins Magazine, Western Heights, Dover

Summary

Between 1876 and 1878, plans were made to create a magazine in the South Entrance complex to serve St Martin’s Battery - a new battery of coast artillery situated on the other side of Centre Road. Originally the magazine was going to be placed in the pre-existing gun-room 1. These plans were, however, changed and the Magazine was constructed on the northern side of the passage linking the Southern Gatehouse with the gunrooms defending the South Entrance Ditch, it was completed in 1877. (location accurate to the nearest 2m based on available information)


Grid Reference:TR 3135 4075
Map Sheet:TR34SW
Parish:DOVER, DOVER, KENT

Monument Types

  • MAGAZINE (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1877 AD? to 1945 AD?)

Full description

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Summarised from report:

Between 1876 and 1878, plans were made to create a magazine in the South Entrance complex to serve St Martin’s Battery - a new battery of coast artillery situated on the other side of Centre Road. Originally the magazine was going to be placed in the pre-existing gun-room 1. These plans were, however, changed and the Magazine was constructed on the northern side of the passage linking the Southern Gatehouse with the gunrooms defending the South Entrance Ditch, it was completed in 1877. The magazine had a simple rectangular plan, with double doors leading from the passage into a shifting lobby. Double doors opened from the lobby into the magazine, which had a wooden floor and racking. A second door in the passage gave onto a lamp passage running along one side and halfway around the rear wall of the magazine, with lamp recesses giving light into the shifting lobby and the rear wall of the magazine. The lamp passage also served to ventilate half of the magazine through a vent in the rear wall, the remainder ventilated by a conventional cavity. (1)

A plan dating to 1878 shows this magazine shortly after it was completed. (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 Report No 6: The Entrances to the Fortress: 19th-century artillery fortifications (Unpublished document).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, 1878, Hand-tinted plan and sections of the main magazine for St Martin's Battery and the South Entrance Casemates at Western Heights and a site plan showing its location (Plan). SKE51624.

Sources and further reading

Cross-ref. Source description
<1>XYUnpublished document: RCHME. 2000. The Western Heights, Dover, Kent. Report No 6: The Entrances to the Fortress: 19th-century artillery fortifications. [Mapped feature: #92982 St. Martins Magazine, ]
<2>Plan: Royal Engineers. 1878. Hand-tinted plan and sections of the main magazine for St Martin's Battery and the South Entrance Casemates at Western Heights and a site plan showing its location.

Related records

TR 34 SW 82Part of: Western Heights, Dover (Monument)