White Cliffs of Dover
Discover The White Cliffs
The famous White Cliffs of
Dover stand guard at the Gateway to England where millions pass
each year on their journey to or from the continent. In some places
over 300 feet high, the White Cliffs are a symbol of the nation's
strength against enemies and a reassuring sight to returning
travellers, they have been immortalised in song, in literature and
in art.
The Geology
On a clear day you can see right
across from the Dover cliffs to the cliffs on the French coast at
Cap Gris Nez, proof of the continuous strata of chalk.
Around seventy million years ago this
part of Britain was submerged by a shallow sea. The sea bottom was
made of a white mud formed from the fragments of coccoliths - the
skeletons of tiny algae which floated in the surface waters of the
sea. This mud was later to become the chalk. It is thought that the
chalk was deposited very slowly, probably only half a millimetre a
year - equivalent to about 180 coccoliths piled one on top of
another. In spite of this, up to 500 metres of chalk were deposited
in places. The coccoliths are too small to be seen without a
powerful microscope but if you look carefully you will find fossils
of some of the larger inhabitants of the chalk sea such as sponges,
shells, ammonites and urchins.
Since the time of the chalk sea, the
chalk has been lifted out of the water by movements of the earth's
crust. Most of the shaping of the beautiful chalk downlands we see
today took place during the last Ice Age. The latter part of the
Ice Age also saw the invasion of chalk by the English Channel -
Britain had become as island.
The Romans
The history of Britain is intricately
linked with the White Cliffs from the Roman invasion to the assault
made by Germany in both World Wars. The first recorded description
of Dover describes the scene that Julius Caesar saw in 55 BC when,
with two legions of soldiers, he arrived off Dover looking for a
suitable landing place and ' saw the enemy's forces, armed, in
position on all the hills there. At that point steep cliffs came
down close to the sea in such a way that it is possible to hurl
weapons from them right down to the shore. It seemed to me that the
place was altogether unsuitable for landing.' (Caesar's
Commentaries, Book IV.)
But they did land just along the coast
in Deal and a year later a full scale invasion followed. As an aid
to navigation for the Roman ships, two lighthouses, Pharos, were
built on top of the cliffs. One is on the east cliff and stands
adjacent to the church of St. Mary, in Dover Castle and is today in
an excellent state of preservation. A second Pharos was built on
the Western Heights, its remains were called in the 17th
century the Bredenstone and by some, the Devil's Drop of Mortar.
During excavation work for further fortifications of the site in
1861 the foundations of the tower were discovered and left exposed
in the wall of the Officers' Quarters.
The Defence of the Nation
The east cliff with its commanding
view over the channel is a position of natural strength and has
been the site of fortification since the Iron Age. The Castle dates
back to the 11th century but additions and alterations
have been made up to and including the twentieth century. Looking
up at the cliffs from Townwall Street, on the approach to the
Eastern Docks, you can see signs of massive tunnelling works at
various levels in the cliff below the Castle. The upper level of
excavation took place in Napoleonic times to provide cannon ports
and were used during World War I as an hospital. In World War II
this level was used to billet troops during the excavation of
Dunkirk. The lower levels housed the operations room for Channel
Command during the Battle of Britain and the rooms that Winston
Churchill used as his personal war-time headquarters.
It was at Churchill's insistence that
superior artillery positions were maintained along the White
Cliffs, leading perhaps inevitably, to the first gun installed
being called ' Winnie' . There were gun batteries along the cliffs
at St. Margaret's Bay, Langdon Bay, St. Martin's Battery and the
Citadel (the Western Heights) and at Capel near Folkestone. The
counterbombardment and anti-aircraft gun fire was directed from a
control room in the cliff complex.
On the west cliff, known as the
Western heights, are two Napoleonic forts linked by miles of
ditches. Construction of these began in 1804 and was not completed
until the 1860s. The Drop Redoubt, the smaller detached fort,
housed a team of Commandos in World War II. Their task would have
been to sabotage the port in the event of Dover falling to German
forces.
The White Cliffs in Song and
Literature.
In 1941 the White Cliffs became a
symbol of the hope for peace expressed in the lines of the song
'The White Cliffs of Dover', sung by Vera Lynn (words by Nat
Burton, music by Walter Kent, 1941).
But perhaps the most famous reference
to the White Cliffs is the reason why Shakespeare Cliff is so
called. In King Lear, Act IV, Scene I, the Earl of Gloucester
having asked Edgar ' Dost thou know Dover?' says,
' There is a cliff, whose high and
bending head
looks fearfully in the confined deep:
Bring me to the very brim of it .......'
Edgar fools the blinded Gloucester
into thinking he is at the Cliff edge and describes the scene:
' Here's the place! - stand still
- how fearful
And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eye so low!
.................................................
................................................. half way
down
Hangs one that gathers samphire: dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.'
Shakespeare's mention of samphire
gatherers prompts a diversion from literature to an example of the
plant life which abounds on the chalk grasslands and even on the
cliff face. The Rock Samphire, a native perennial with small yellow
florets, was once a favourite vegetable, the leaves and stalk were
cooked and eaten like asparagus. Samphire gatherers collected the
plant by attaching themselves to a rope suspended from the cliff
top. In 1768 a highwayman escaped from confinement in the Castle by
way of a rope left by a samphire gatherer at the top of the Castle
cliffs.
Not all apprehended thieves got away
so easily though. In medieval times the cliff overlooking Snargate
Street called Sharpness Cliff was a place of execution. The
prosecutor had to double as executioner and throw the thief off the
cliff.
The last word we'll give to Matthew
Arnold from his poem Dover Beach, published in 1867.
' The sea is calm tonight,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits:- on the French coast, the light
Gleams, and is gone: the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.'