Dover

During the Battle of Ballon, which took place between the kingdoms of England and France during the period of 1216-1217. Louis VIII of France used Dover's mainland beach as a landing zone for his army, in order to depose King Henry III. King Henry III responded to this onslaught by ambushing King Louis' army from atop The White Cliffs of Dover. The English Army set up approximately 400 bowmen along the cliff face, with the cavalry meeting the opposition on the beach itself. This tactic did not work, the English cavalry were slaughtered on the beach and the French Army made their way up the cliffs, meeting the bowmen and disposing of them as well. This battle is marked as the beginning of the Siege of Dover as the French army were able to make their way into the seaside village, taking military control of the village and forcing English troops back to Canterbury. The French control of Dover lasted for a period of 3 months after which the English troops were able to push back and force the French to surrender and return to France.

Dover Castle seen from Castle Street.

Photograph showing a Dover street scene, c. 1860

Archaeological finds have shown that there were Stone Age people in the area, and that some Iron Age finds also exist.[4] During the Roman period, the area became part of the Roman communications network. It was connected by road to Canterbury and Watling Street and it became Portus Dubris, a fortified port. Dover has a partly preserved Roman lighthouse (the tallest surviving Roman structure in Britain) and the remains of a villa with preserved Roman wall paintings.[5] Dover later figured in Domesday Book (1086).

Forts were built above the port and lighthouses were constructed to guide passing ships. It is one of the Cinque Ports.[6] and has served as a bastion against various attackers: notably the French during the Napoleonic Wars and Germany during the Second World War.

During the Cold War, a Regional Seat of Government was located within the White Cliffs beneath Dover Castle. Curiously, this is omitted from the strategic objects appearing on the Soviet 1:10,000 city plan of Dover that was produced in 1974.[7] The port would have served as an embarkation point for sending reinforcements to the British Army of the Rhine in the event of a Soviet ground invasion of Europe.

In 1974 a discovery was made at Langdon Bay off the coast near Dover. It contained bronze axes of French design and is probably the remainder of the cargo of a sunken ship. At the same time, this find also shows that trade routes across the Channel between England and France existed already in the Bronze Age, or even earlier. In 1992, the so-called Dover boat from the Bronze Age was discovered in six metres depth underwater. This is one of the oldest finds of a seaworthy boat. Using the radiocarbon method of investigation, the boat's construction was dated to approximately 1550 BC.

1945 Ordnance Survey map of Dover, showing the harbour

Dover is in the south-east corner of Britain. From South Foreland, the nearest point to the European mainland, Cap Gris Nez is 34 kilometres (21 mi) away across the Strait of Dover.[10]

The site of its original settlement lies in the valley of the River Dour, sheltering from the prevailing south-westerly winds. This has led to the silting up of the river mouth by the action of longshore drift. The town has been forced into making artificial breakwaters to keep the port in being. These breakwaters have been extended and adapted so that the port lies almost entirely on reclaimed land.

The higher land on either side of the valley – the Western Heights and the eastern high point on which Dover Castle stands – has been adapted to perform the function of protection against invaders. The town has gradually extended up the river valley, encompassing several villages in doing so. Little growth is possible along the coast, since the cliffs are on the sea's edge. The railway, being tunnelled and embanked, skirts the foot of the cliffs.

Dover has an oceanic climate (Koppen classification Cfb) similar to the rest of the United Kingdom with mild temperatures year-round and a light amount of rainfall each month. The warmest recorded temperature was 35.9 °C (96.6 °F), recorded on 25 July 2019.[11] The temperature is usually between 3 °C (37 °F) and 21.1 °C (70.0 °F). There is evidence that the sea is coldest in February; the warmest recorded temperature for February was only 13 °C (55 °F), compared with 16 °C (61 °F) in January.

In 1800, the year before Britain's first national census, Edward Hasted (1732–1812) reported that the town had a population of almost 10,000 people.[13]

At the 2001 census, the town of Dover had 28,156 inhabitants, while the population of the whole urban area of Dover, as calculated by the Office for National Statistics, was 39,078 inhabitants.[14]

With the expansion of Dover, many of the outlying ancient villages have been incorporated into the town. Originally the parishes of Dover St. Mary's and Dover St. James, since 1836 Buckland and Charlton have become part Dover, and Maxton (a hamlet to the west), River, Kearsney, Temple Ewell, and Whitfield, all to the north of the town centre, are within its conurbation.

The Town Hall, which dates back to 1203

• Blériot memorial: the outline of Louis Blériot's aircraft, marked with granite setts, at the exact spot where Blériot landed after the first cross-Channel flight, 1909[21]
• Dover Castle
• White Cliffs of Dover
• Dover Western Heights
• Dover Museum
• Dover Marina
• Dover Pier
• Roman Painted House Museum
• Maison Dieu, Dover
• Samphire Hoe
• South Foreland Lighthouse
• Pines Garden
• St Edmund's Chapel
• St Mary's Church
• St James' Church: preserved as a "tidy ruin"
• St Paul's Church

Dover Castle	White Cliffs of Dover	Pines Garden	Samphire Hoe Country Park
The castle from the north	White Cliffs seen from the Strait of Dover	The Pines Garden	Samphire Hoe beneath the White Cliffs of Dover

The Dover lifeboat is a Severn class lifeboat based in the Western Docks.[32] Dover Lifeboat station is based at crosswall quay in Dover Harbour. There is a Severn-class lifeboat, which is the biggest in the fleet. It belongs to the RNLI which covers all of Great Britain. The lifeboat number is 17-09 and has a lot of emergencies in the Channel. The Severn class is designed to lay afloat. Built from fibre reinforced composite (FRC) the boat is lightweight yet very strong and is designed to right itself in the event of a capsize.

There are seven secondary level schools serving Dover.

Public schools

• Dover College

Dover College is a mixed public school founded in 1871 by a group of local business men.[33]

Selective secondary schools

There are 2 single-sex grammar schools and a mixed military school.

• Dover Grammar School for Boys (DGSB)
• Dover Grammar School for Girls (DGGS)

Both grammar schools require the Dover Test or the Kent Test for admission to Year 7.

• Duke of York's Royal Military School

Duke of York's Royal Military School is a selective secondary school with academy status and England's only military boarding school for children of service personnel (co-education ages 11–18), located next to the former site of Connaught Barracks.

Non-selective secondary schools

There are 3 ex-secondary modern mixed schools, all with academy status.

• Astor Secondary School

Astor Secondary School federated with St Radigunds Primary School (then renamed White Cliffs Primary College for the Arts) to form the Dover Federation for the Arts (DFA). Subsequently, Barton Junior School and Shatterlocks Nursery and Infant School joined the DFA. In 2014 the DFA was warned by the Department for Education about "unacceptably low standards of performance of pupils ".[34]

• St Edmund's Catholic School

St Edmund's Catholic School federated with St Richards Catholic Primary School to form the Dover Federation of Catholic Schools.

• Dover Christ Church Academy

Dover Christ Church Academy is located in Whitfield, 4 miles north of Dover.

Technical College

Dover Technical College is part of the East Kent College (EKC) group.

In addition, 16 primary schools and 2 special schools add to the educational offering.

Dover has one hospital, Buckland Hospital.[35] Earlier hospitals included the Royal Victoria Hospital, the Isolation Hospital and the Eye Hospital.

There are three museums: the main Dover Museum,[39] the Dover Transport Museum[40] and the Roman Painted House.[41] The town has two cinemas, the Silver Screen Cinema [42] located at the Dover Museum and the Cineworld Cinema opened in 2018 as part of the St James' Retail and Leisure complex.[15] The Discovery Centre located off the Market Square houses Dover's library, Dover Museum, Silver Screen Cinema, the Roundhouse Community Theatre as well as adult education facilities.[43] The Charlton Shopping Centre [44] off the High Street has retail units, the Dover Local community hub, leisure facilities and the studios of Dover Community Radio.[45] The White Cliffs Theatre opened in 2001 [46] is based at Astor College.[47] There is also a community theatre based at St Edmund's Catholic School [48]

• Calais, France[49]
• Huber Heights, Ohio, United States
• Split, Croatia[50]
• Dover, Christ Church, Barbados

Dover District Leisure Centre operated by Places Leisure [51] located in Whitfield opened in March 2019 replacing the previous facility on Townwall Street, which was operated by Your Leisure, a not for profit charitable trust,[52] which caters for sports and includes a swimming pool.

There are sports clubs, amongst them Dover Athletic F.C., who play in the National League; rugby; swimming; water polo and netball (Dover and District Netball League).[53]

Dover Rowing Club is the oldest coastal rowing club in Britain and has a rich history, at one time becoming the best club on the south coast. More information can be found on the history page of the club's website.[54]

One event which gets media attention is that of swimming the English Channel.[55]

Sea fishing, from the beach, pier or out at sea, is carried out here.[56] The so-called Dover sole (solea solea) is found all over European waters.

Dover is now the host of a variety of watersports; such as paddle-boarding and kayaking.

M.R. James used the Dover landmark, the Lord Warden Hotel, as a location in his short ghost story "Casting the Runes", first published in More Ghost Stories in 1911.

Matthew Arnold used the setting of Dover in his famous 19th-century poem, "Dover Beach".

Dover appears several times in A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

"(There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover" by Vera Lynn, recorded in 1942.

"Clover Over Dover" by British band Blur is track 12 on their 1994 album Parklife.

"Calais to Dover" by American band Bright Eyes is track 13 on their 2020 album Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was.

"Dover Beach" by South African British singer Baby Queen was released in 2021 on her debut album The Yearbook. The music video for the song was filmed at Samphire Hoe. Baby Queen has said her inspiration for the song came from the eponymous poem by Matthew Arnold, a poem she was fascinated by whilst growing up in South Africa. She wrote the song following a visit to Dover by train and sitting on the seafront promenade.

• Strait of Dover

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dover.

Wikisource has the text of a 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article about Dover.

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Dover.

• UKHO nautical charts of Dover and approaches
• The Dover War Memorial Project
• "Dover. A Parliamentary and municipal borough of Kent, England" . New International Encyclopedia. 1905.