Monument record TR 34 SW 2066 - The Detached and North Centre Bastion of the Western Heights, Dover

Summarised from report:

North Centre and Detached Bastions formed an important element of the Western Heights defences, protecting part of the land front to the north-west of the port of Dover. They were built into the linear defences of the Heights and provided a platform for artillery and infantry. Its purpose was to defend the land front, particularly to provide flanking fire along the north slope of the Heights. Both bastions also had intricate measures for their own defence and were designed to operate independently if the need arose. North Centre Bastion was started as part of the Napoleonic works; construction began in 1804 for a bastion to support six 24-pdr carronades, two on the east and west flanks respectively and one in each salient angle with the northern face. In form it was an un-revetted earthwork which had incorporated and earlier linear fieldwork, dating probably from the American war of the 1770’s and 80’s which was aligned east to west along the north face of the Heights, outside and parallel to the later North Lines. By 1805 the earthworks were complete although it was left unfinished at the end of hostilities in 1815. The completion of the work at North Centre and Detached Bastions took place between 1858 and 1867 as part of a wider scheme for the Dover defences as a whole. They were in an advanced state of construction in 1862, when alterations were proposed to its southern caponier. These new fortifications which took up much the same ground as the older works, comprised two distinct elements built to a more powerful and coherent design. The southern element was called the North Centre Bastion (or inner Bastion) and the northern element, Detached Bastion. Both were protected by huge ditches with brick revetments, behind which were casemates musketry galleries and gunrooms for their defence. Rising above the ditches, massive earth ramparts housed infantry positions, artillery emplacements and entrances, protected by traverses, leading to the musketry galleries and gunrooms. North centre and Detached bastions were linked only through the South Caponier which panned the base of the cross ditch between them. A larger more powerful caponier at the north west angle defended sections of the ditch of the detached bastion. Both bastions supported some artillery until around 1900, after which their use for any purpose was intermittent; small scale re-occupation for local defence probably occurred in both the first and second world wars. Today the bastions are derelict and partially vandalised, overgrown and not easily accessible. The original entrances have all been removed. (1)

A plan dating to 1810 shows the Detached bastion as it was originally constructed and before any improvements were made under the 1860's scheme of works, (2) while another dating to 1862 shows the bastion after the major improvements have been made and includes details of the gun emplacements and some of the interior structures. (3)

Further information about the historic development of the North Centre and Detached Bastion is available within the Built Heritage Conservation Framework for Dover Western Heights. (4)

Hitoric England archive material: 2K/01760 DOVER WESTERN HEIGHTS This photographic job has yet to be fully catalogued.
2K/01761 DOVER WESTERN HEIGHTS This photographic job has yet to be fully catalogued.
98/00200 WESTERN HEIGHTS This photographic job has yet to be fully catalogued.
AF00101 Dover Western Heights, North Centre and Detached Bastions The survey of the North Centre and Detached Bastions was carried out by RCHME Cambridge office between April and July 1998 as part of the Western Heights Project. The survey was undertaken at the request of Kent County Council as part of an Interreg II programme relating to historic fortifications in Kent, Nord-Pas de Calais and West Flanders.
PF/WST Western Heights, Dover, Kent 265 drawings dating from the early nineteenth to late twentieth century. These include drawings of alterations to the chapel school in 1894, improvements to the Grand Shaft Barracks and its Married Quarters dated 1929 to 1936, from the 1930s drawings of proposed accommodation for mechanised vehicles at the Citadel and Grand Shaft Barracks, and dating from 1993 to 1996 drawings of the initial consolidation of the Drop Redoubt and rectified photography of its walls.Twenty-six numbers have not been used, or relate to drawings which have been transferred to other site groups.See also PF/DOV for Dover Castle; PF/AFC for Archcliffe Fort; PF/DAD for Admiralty Pier; PF/DBU for Fort Burgoyne; PF/DCB for Connaught Barracks; PF/DLA for Langdon and Fan Hole Batteries; PF/DMH for Dover Military Hospital; PF/DOP for Old Park Barracks; DPB for Dover Practice Battery.

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

<2> E B Metcalf, Royal Military Surveyor and Draughtsman, 1810, Kent: Dover. Map showing fortifications. At the Western Heights
Kent: Dover. Map showing fortifications. (Map). SKE51587.

<3> Office of Works, 1862, Plan showing the improvements to the defences for Dover at the North Centre Bastion at the Western Heights (Plan). SKE51590.

<4> Liv Gibbs, 2012, Built Heritage Conservation Framework for Dover Western Heights (Unpublished document). SKE17708.

<5> Kent Defence Research Group, c. 1993, Kent Defence Research Group 'Fort Logs' (Unpublished document). SKE52251.