Report - Dover Trip (Z Rocket, Langdon Hole, North/South Casemates), July 2012

[KronJewels]

Visited with silverainbow and Chris, three (or four) sites over the course of the day. Was just using a point and shoot so apologies for the quality of the photos. All history is from Underground Kent.

First was the Z Rocket/St Margaret's deep shelter:

At St Margaret's Bay there is the underground deep shelter for St Margarets 5.5" Battery. This site was the first one to use the unrotated projectile known as the Z - Rocket which was a anti - aircraft (AA) weapon. It was officially known as a UP or unrotated projectile. It was not particularly accurate, but the thinking was that if fired in large enough amounts an enemy plane just might get hit!

Fallen ducting

Unlined section

Then we tried to have a look at the St Margaret's Esplanade tunnels, but the tide was going the wrong way so we headed up to Langdon Hole:

Langdon Hole is an underground system which has been sealed since 1979, called "Dumpy B" ( " Dumpy A" being Long Hill underground radio station ).Which was a alternative site for Reserve Central Command Headquarters based below Dover Castle, or it may have been an alternative generator room for the Telegraph and Signal Station at Swingate.

This shelter had a much more elaborate ventilation system than the other deep shelters I've been in in Dover, with underfloor ducting and oddly placed air passages.

One of the main rooms, with some of the ventilation ducts apparently taken from ships

Cart for moving equipment up and down the railed incline to the shelter

Then we went over to the South Casemates at the Western Heights:

During a new fear of invasion from Napoleon III two new dry moats where added to the existing citadel defences. The northern and the southern moat both had their own casemates built. Between these there was also a defensive caponier built, but sadly this was filled in during the 1960's by the Dover Corporation and they gradually destroyed many parts of the Western Heights.

To get from the South to the North casemates we had to elbow-crawl, stoop and slither for about ten minutes along here, including a six foot long pipe only just wide enough to squeeze through, using your toes to push yourself along:

The North Casemates had obviously had far fewer visitors over the years - perhaps due to the tunnel slither, or perhaps just because of the state of the toilets:

Walking back we came across this little fellow, sniffing around only a few metres away:

All in all a good day!