Archcliffe Bulwark was a fort constructed by Henry VIII in 1539 to protect the port of Dover from French or Spanish attack. It was built on the site of an older medieval watchtower, on the western heights overlooking the harbour. In the 17th century, the bulwark was redeveloped into a larger fortification, some of which still survives today.
History
During the medieval period the town of Dover was protected by a castle and a sequence of walls, but by the start of the 16th century these were outdated. The town walls had fallen into decline, and Dover Castle’s defences were outdated, and vulnerable to gunpowder weapons. When international tensions with France and Spain increased in the 1530s, King Henry VIII decided to strengthen the defences with new bulwarks at Moat’s Bulwark and Archcliffe Fort, equipped with anti-naval artillery guns.
During the late-14th century, a watchtower had been constructed at Archcliffe, on the Western Heights, on the opposite side of the town to Dover Castle. In 1539, Henry converted this into a bulwark, a type of small fort, which probably had five sides, with a gatehouse on the eastern side, all protected by a ditch. It would not have been a powerful fortification, and the historian Jonathan Coad describes its construction as a largely token gesture.
In the 17th century, the site was entirely redeveloped into a larger, bastioned fortification. This was updated in 1755 and between 1807-15, and expanded in 1872 to hold 10-inch muzzle-loading guns. The defences on the seaward side were demolished to allow for the construction of a Southern Railway shed in 1928. No traces of the original bulwark now remain, although the later defences are protected under UK law as a Scheduled Monument.
Bibliography
- Coad, Jonathan. (2007) Dover Castle. English Heritage: London, UK.
- Coad, Jonathan. (2011) Dover Castle: A Frontline Fortress and its Wartime Tunnels. English Heritage: London, UK.
Attribution
The text of this page is licensed under under CC BY-NC 2.0. Images on this page include those from the British Library, licensed as follows: Map of Dover Harbour, 1725 (Public Domain).