A day at the Dover Castle

Staircase on path up to the castle

We went to the Dover Castle on Friday, September 3rd. This trip was full of a lot of "firsts" for Isaac. We hopped on the train to London at 0635 and made it to Dover by about 0940. This was Isaac's first real train trip in England and his first experience of traveling with me on a pretty long day trip. It was also Isaac's first trip to a castle and I think the first time he was able to experience first handed some of the experiences from WWII.

When we got to Dover, we pulled out our trusty map and headed up to Dover Castle. The train let us off basically at the base of Dover and we had to walk straight up many roads to get to the access path. Then we started up the path and climbed 84 steps (see the picture above) just to get to the entrance of the Castle.

The castle began as a fort in the Iron Age. The Romans built a light house that is still standing, and then an Anglo-Saxon church was built. In 1066, the Normans assumed power of the fort. They continued to expand the fort and created a series of tunnels throughout the cliffs. Then later, the massive castle was built between 1180 and 1185 by Henry II. The fort (now a castle) and tunnels were expanded by the British Armed Forces and were instrumental in Operation Dynamo and the Dunkirk evacuation in WWII. As WWII progressed, a hospital was built in one of the tunnels in the cliffs. Men and women lived and worked in the tunnels. Although almost the entire city of Dover was destroyed in WWII, the castle remained untouched. The theory is that Hitler wanted to use the castle to his advantage, so he made sure that the castle was not harmed. The castle has recently been remodeled. We were able to go through the secret wartime tunnels and explore the castle. The experience was totally awesome, and do I mean Awe - some. Here is the English Heritage Link that provides a description of what we saw as well as a more detailed history of the castle: Dover Castle.

View of Dover Straight from the entrance of the castle

We started out in the tunnels. Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures in the tunnels. However, here is the entrance to the hospital...

On either side of this picture, there are walkways that lead into the tunnels that are built into the cliffs. The hospital was used mainly as a triage center. Injured soldiers were stabilized and then sent to London for further treatment. As the war progressed and moved away from this area, the nurses and doctors provided more routine care to soldiers. Throughout the tour, there was a guide who talked while we walked through the tunnels. I can't imagine working in the tunnels. They were large but confining. They also were not particularly well lit. The operating theatre had a display of surgical instruments from the 1940's. Boy am I glad that I didn't need to have surgery then!

After the tour of the tunnels, we walked up to the top of the cliffs...

We found a statue honoring Vice-Admiral Ramsay - the man who organized Operation Dynamo.

Then we climbed to the top of a platform, and we were able to get great views of the cliff and the harbor.

Looking east

Looking west

We then ate lunch at a picnic table on top of the cliffs. Here is what we saw as we ate:

This seagull sat and watched us eat the entire time. Isaac fed him raisins - I am not sure who enjoyed this more - the seagull or Isaac! After lunch, we decided to explore the castle. My pictures do not do it justice. The entire time I was walking through the castle and all of its tunnels, I couldn't help but wonder how it was built. The walls were so tall and the rooms were so grand. It truly is an architectural wonder. How it managed to be built so long ago, survive multiple attacks and wars and still be mostly standing is a miracle. Our tour guide told us that there really was no green space in the castle when it was in its heyday - there were rooms and rooms for men to sleep in. However, those areas were destroyed at different times, so there are some grassy areas now that didn't used to be there.

The walk up to the main entrance of the castle

 Throughout the castle, there was a group of actors and actresses that entertained us. Isaac loved this part - we saw a dinner, we witnessed an argument between the bread baker and the beer brewess in the kitchen, and even sat through several court hearings. I ended up being a shepherdess who was experiencing problems with my sheep because a miller was paid by King Henry II to build a mill to grind the wheat to make bread for the castle. Well the miller diverted the water that led to my farm and my sheep, my children and I were all starving. I ended up having to fence with the miller - played by a man from Holland - and we ended in a hung jury (Isaac was one of the jurors). Unfortunately since we were part of the skit, we didn't get any pictures of our fun, but here is a picture of the room where the court case took place.

Here is the kitchen, complete with the baker and the beer maker :)

and Amy in the kitchen

and Isaac climbing one of the many staircases!

The views from the castle just took our breath away.

The view from one of the windows in the castle

The church is to the left and the Roman lighthouse is the taller circular building in the middle of the picture

Moko and Papa's cruise will leave from this part of the port - we saw lots of cruise ships here :)

One of the outermost walls of the castle

The view out of the window behind Isaac in the picture above

After exploring the upper parts of the castle, we started going down into the dungeons. I was convinced the tunnels were haunted. Although we never saw any ghosts, if I were a ghost, this would be a good place to live!

One of the dungeon areas

If you look hard enough, you can see Dover just under the branches of the tree

After spending almost 6 hours at the castle, we decided we needed to hop back on the train to go home. I took Isaac to his first pub where we sat outside and both had our first homemade beef burger. The food was great as was the ale, but the language of some of the pub patrons was atrocious. It was so bad, they were apologizing to us for their foul language but they continued to talk that way - then we started hearing people on the street talk that way too. I am not sure if young adults in the UK are extremely angry or if they just get a lot of satisfaction saying the f-word over and over again...we definitely had a dose of colourful language!

On our way to the train, we saw the following signs that Isaac found particularly amusing...

Fortunately, we didn't fall off any roofs nor did we get electrocuted. We made it back to the train in one piece and we made it back to Grantham by 2030. We got back to the manor by 2100 and fell into bed by 2200. It was a full day. Isaac and I both commented again about how old has a different reference point here. I mean something isn't old unless some Romans or Normans created it. The manor we live in is relatively modern when compared with the Dover Castle. The presence of miracles are all around us. Although we miss all our family, friends, and dogs, we are so happy to be here. In fact, Isaac said again that he could live here. I hope he still feels this way after he goes to school on Monday :) Well, I best be off to bed. We are going to church tomorrow to sing some more old and new hymns :)