Town in Kent, England
Dover
The Dunkirk rescue was named after a generator room in the tunnels beneath Dover Castle. That is only one of the town's firsts on the Channel.
Key information
- County
- Kent
- Nation
- England
- Known for
- The White Cliffs, Dover Castle and Europe's busiest ferry crossing
- Famous people
- Connected with Louis Blériot, Captain Matthew Webb and Charles Rolls
- Football clubs
- Dover Athletic, nicknamed the Whites, who play at Crabble
About Dover
The generator room that named Operation Dynamo
Deep under Dover Castle, a warren of tunnels dug in the Napoleonic Wars was reused in 1940 as a naval command centre. One of its rooms housed an electrical generator, a dynamo. The operation planned there to pull the British army off the beaches of Dunkirk took that name. Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay ran Operation Dynamo from the tunnels between 26 May and 4 June 1940. Around 338,000 troops were brought home, many of them landing at Dover. The stretch of sea in front of the town was known as Hellfire Corner, because German guns across the Channel could shell it. The tunnels were later used as a wartime hospital and are now open as a visitor attraction.
A boat that was old when Stonehenge was young-ish
In 1992, road workers digging in Dover found a Bronze Age boat in the ground. It is about 3,500 years old, and is thought to be the oldest known seagoing boat in the world. It was built from oak planks stitched together, and it was big enough to cross the Channel. The boat is now in Dover Museum. It shows that people were making the short hop to the Continent long before the Romans arrived. The Romans did arrive, though. They built the port of Portus Dubris and a lighthouse, the Pharos, on the cliff above it. The Pharos still stands beside the castle, with a medieval church built up against it. The Roman Painted House, a former inn for travellers, still has wall paintings of around AD 200.
The Key to England
Dover is where invasions have tended to start, so it was heavily fortified. William the Conqueror took the town in 1066 and the castle's defences followed. Henry II built the great keep in the 1180s. In 1216 Prince Louis of France besieged the castle. Hubert de Burgh held out, and the castle stayed in English hands. Dover became one of the original Cinque Ports, the medieval confederation that supplied ships to the Crown in return for privileges. In the Napoleonic era the Western Heights above the town were turned into a fortress. It includes the Grand Shaft, a triple spiral staircase of three separate stairways, built around 1800 so soldiers could get from the barracks to the harbour quickly.
Swimmers, aviators and one very odd song
Dover is the traditional starting point for Channel swimmers. On 24 August 1875 Captain Matthew Webb set off from Admiralty Pier and reached Calais after 21 hours and 45 minutes, the first person to swim the Channel without artificial aids. The skies had their turn too. On 25 July 1909 Louis Blériot landed in Northfall Meadow, beside the castle, after flying from Calais in about 36 minutes. He won the Daily Mail's £1,000 prize, and a memorial in the shape of his monoplane marks the spot. In 1910 Charles Rolls, co-founder of Rolls-Royce, made the first non-stop double crossing by air, and a statue of him stands on the seafront. Then there is the song. "(There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover" was recorded by Vera Lynn in 1942. It was written by two Americans, Nat Burton and Walter Kent. Bluebirds are not found in Britain.
Chalk, ferries and a famous fish
The White Cliffs are chalk, rising to about 110 metres in places, and they are the first thing many travellers see of England. Shakespeare Cliff is named for the scene in King Lear in which Gloucester believes he is at the edge of a cliff near Dover. Below them the port is one of the busiest ferry crossings in Europe, with lorries, cars and coaches heading to and from Calais all day and night. Calais is about 27 miles (43 km) away across the Channel, though the Strait's narrowest span, towards Cap Gris-Nez, is about 21 miles (34 km). The Dover sole is named after the town. For centuries the flatfish was landed here and sent on to London tables. Dover Athletic, the Whites, play at Crabble, a ground with a steep valley setting.