Dover

Dover, a Cinque Port and parliamentary and municipal borough in the east of Kent, 66 miles ESE. of London, and the headquarters of the south-eastern district of the British army, is not only a charmingly situated watering-place, but, being the nearest point of the English coast to France, is a seaport of growing importance, with mail service to Calais and Ostend. In 1891 parliament sanctioned great harbour works—the admiralty pier (780 yards, and dating partly from 1844) being extended 580 yards, and a new east pier, partly iron and partly stone, built so as to enclose a harbour of 36 acres, half of it from 3 to 6 fathoms deep at low water. The fortifications comprise Dover Castle, which occupies a commanding position on the chalk cliffs, 375 feet above the level of the sea, and still includes some of the old Saxon and Norman work; Fort Burgoyne on the north side of the town, Archcliffe Fort to the west, and the batteries on the Western Heights, where large barracks are situated. There are also the remains of a Roman pharos or lighthouse, and of a Romano-British church (restored). Dover has a new town-hall (1883), a museum, a hospital, and a large number of churches. It is chiefly dependent on its shipping trade and its attractions as a watering- place, but shipbuilding and sail and rope making are carried on, and there are also flour and paper mills. Formerly it returned two members to parliament, but since 1885 returns but one. Pop. of borough (1871) 28,506; (1881) 28,486; (1891) 33,418. Dover is well sheltered by the cliffs, and ends landward in a charming valley leading to what is known as 'The Garden of Kent.' By the Romans it was known as Portus Duris; the Normans called it Dovere; the French, Douvres; whilst in legal documents of this day the town is Dovar, all four terms being variations of the Celtic word 'Dour,' the name of the small river which runs through the town. Fortified and walled by William the Conqueror, during whose reign it was nearly burned down, noted as the place of King John's submission to the pope, besieged by the French, held during the Civil War by the parliamentarians, threatened by the first Napoleon, and celebrated as the headquarters of the Lord Wardens of the Cinque Ports (see CINQUE PORTS), Dover holds a distinguished place in English history. Three submarine cables connect it with the Continent, and here is the entrance to the proposed Channel Tunnel (q.v.). See Statham's History of Dover (1899).