Summarised from report:

On the north face of the Heights, some 500m north-east of the North Entrance on the south side of the North Military Road, is a reinforced-concrete walled compound let into the hillside. The compound contains a pair of reinforced-concrete buildings used during the Second World War by the 7th Coastal Defence Maintenance Unit (7 CDMU) of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) as an instrument workshop and separate living accommodation. The unit personnel, based mainly at the nearby Ordnance Store on St John’s Road, were concerned with the maintenance of the optical instruments used for aiming and calibrating the coast artillery weapons emplaced around Dover.

The instrument Workshop is a six-bay concrete structure with a flat concrete roof, higher in the central three bays. In the centre of the front elevation a pair of substantial sliding steel doors, suspended on an external steel runner, originally closed the entrance. Windows were provided only in the front elevation to minimise the effects of bomb blasts. The blast-proof roof is constructed of ribbed steel sections bolted together and covered with a thick layer of poured concrete. The interior of the building is divided into three unequally sized rooms by 0.30m thick reinforced-concrete partition walls, aligned north to south. These sections contained a workshop in the taller three middle bays, boiler, generator, air cleaner and office in the two bays at the eastern end and stores and toilets in the single bay at the western end. The compound is now a vehicle workshop used by B.M.S Garages. (1-2)

<1> CBA Defence of Britain Project, 1994, Defence of Britain Site Report, Pers. Comm. David Burridge, KDRG/PSG (Bibliographic reference). SKE6447.

<2> RCHME, 2001, The Western Heights, Dover, Kent. Report No 10: Miscellaneous Structures 1850-1945 (Unpublished document). SKE17506.