Monument record TR 34 SW 1944 - The North Lines Battery, Drop Redoubt, Western Heights, Dover

Summarised from report:

Plans for a battery west of the Drop Redoubt were being drawn up in 1892. A design of June 1893 depicts positions for five 64-pdr RML guns but a revision plan made in August of that year shows only four: this was the design adopted. It was not a battery in its own right but rather, formed part of the Drop Redoubt defences, occupying the ridge between the Drop Redoubt and the North Entrance and commanding the valley to the north. These guns were short-lived and were removed in 1903. The ridge west of the Drop Redoubt is flattened into a broad top, along the north side of which four gun emplacements stood on a terreplein behind a rampart: three emplacements survive along with a side arms store towards the centre; a fourth emplacement and expense magazine at the western end were destroyed during construction of the modern course of the North Military Road. The rear of the battery was protected by a screen bank along the southern side of the ridge, planted with a hedge and trees, through which a covered way provided access. Much of the battery is beneath heavy tree cover and undergrowth which has colonised since the end of the Second World War. However, one emplacement has been incorporated into a residential garden, while the side arms store is used as a tool shed. (1)

Further detiail of the historical development of this battery are available in the Built Heritage Conservation Framework for Dover Western Heights. (2)

Two plans dating to 1892 and 1893 show detail of the features constructed at the North Lines Battery. (3-4)

<1> English Heritage, 2000, The Western Heights, Dover, Kent. Report No 3 The Drop Redoubt: A 19th-Century Artillery Fortification (Unpublished document). SKE13677.

<2> Liv Gibbs, 2012, Built Heritage Conservation Framework for Dover Western Heights (Unpublished document). SKE17708.

<3> Unknown, 1893, Dover, North Lines, Plan Shewing proposed Bank and Hedge, to secure Guns from Sea View (Plan). SKE51539.

<4> Unknown., 1892, Dover, Drop Redoubt, Details of Gun Emplacements & Side Arms Store – North Lines (Plan). SKE51540.