X. Some Unpublished Plans of Dover Harbour

William Minet

doi:10.1017/S0261340900009693

X. Some Unpublished Plans of Dover Harbour

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 November 2011

William Minet

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Dover has been both fortunate and unfortunate. Its misfortunes it has shared with the other harbours on the south-east coast, and if its fortune has been to escape the fate which has overwhelmed them, this is due solely to its proximity to the opposite shore, and the consequent necessity of preserving it as a port of passage, an end which has only been achieved by a continuing expenditure of public money; nor is the tale, as some think, even yet all told.

Type: Research Article
Information: Archaeologia , Volume 72 , 1922 , pp. 185 - 224

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261340900009693 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1922

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^{page 188 note 1} De Bello Gallico, iv, 21.Google Scholar

^{page 189 note 1} Fig. 2.

^{page 189 note 2} The name survives in Paradise Street, which, until the recent clearance of this area, crossed the site of this harbour. The inner basin of Calais harbour, frequented by fishing-boats, is also known as Paradise, and it would appear that Dover took the name from Calais, for Mr. F. Lennel, the historian of Calais, tells me that the name was in use in Calais in the time of Edward III. He is unfortunately unable to give me any definite authority for this, since, living at Arras, his notes and his house have alike perished.

^{page 189 note 3} L. & P., 25 Hen. VIII, 66.

^{page 190 note 1} The remains of Thompson's Black Bulwark also survive in the last Ordnance plan of Dover as the Bull Rock.

^{page 190 note 2} One of these groynes is shown in plate xxxvi. Against it is written ’The foot of the preble’, ‘The length of the groyne, standyng southe from the long or south est side is lx foot’.

^{page 190 note 3} L. & P., 26 Hen. VIII, 1170.

^{page 190 note 4} This would be his new seaward pier. One of the difficulties in interpreting these documents arises from their use of compass bearings, as these, of course, vary according to the points from which they were taken.

^{page 191 note 1} Cotton MSS. Aug. I. i, 22, 23. Statham, (Hist. of Dover, Lond., 1899)Google Scholar reproduces this, but without the lettering, its most valuable feature. A good reproduction of it was published by T. Rigden of Dover in 1838. It is difficult to date this plan exactly; it cannot be earlier than T538, and is probably about 1543.

^{page 191 note 2} They appear on all the later plans of the harbour, and are generally so named.

^{page 191 note 3} L. & P., 29 Hen. VIII, 397.

^{page 192 note 1} Cot. Aug. I, 26. A similar plan is among the archives of the Dover Harbour Commissioners. Plate xxxvii is taken from the latter.

^{page 192 note 2} L. & P., 28 Hen. VIII, 92,335.

^{page 192 note 3} Sutherland Coll. B. 1. 71. It is unknown to all writers on Dover.

^{page 193 note 1} This appears very clearly in a later plan (pl. xli), where it is named ‘Ould Crane Head’.

^{page 193 note 2} Arch. xi, 244. I shall often have occasion to quote this MS., which, bequeathed to the Society by John Thorpe, is printed in Archaeologia, xi.

^{page 194 note 1} Arch. xi, 241.

^{page 194 note 2} Ibid. 212. The P. R. O. references are State Papers Dom. Eliz. vol. 120: 24, 24¹; 131: 72, 72³; 140: 46. Only the second of these is dated, 1579, but the others are clearly of about the same date. Attached to the first is a plan (pl. xl) to be noted later; the second also refers to a plan which is said to accompany it but does not.

^{page 195 note 1} Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 11815 a.

^{page 196 note 1} Hatfield Papers, Maps, i, 58.

^{page 196 note 2} The Hatfield plan is further noticeable for one thing, it gives key letters to fourteen well-known landmarks in and around Dover, adding their height in fathoms ‘above the ful sea mark’. All these points are well known with one exception–the letter L being explained in the key as the ‘Lawles Church’; now on the plan L stands seemingly where was the Templars' Church, whose foundations have recently been recovered and protected. I cannot find this name anywhere else, nor can I in any way account for it as applied to this church; moreover, it goes to prove that at this date the church was still a prominent landmark.

^{page 196 note 3} P. R. O. State Papers; Dom. Eliz. 120 124).

^{page 197 note 1} B. M. Add. MSS. 11815 b; Arch. vi, 208. It maybe noticed that Symans's ‘Great Parrads’ becomes ‘Great Parade’.

^{page 197 note 2} For an account of this distinguished Kentish family see the Diet, of Nat. Biog., s. v. Digges, Thomas.

^{page 197 note 3} This enclosure became known as the Pent, and is now the Wellington Dock.

^{page 197 note 4} Arch. xi, 237.Google Scholar

^{page 198 note 1} Arch. xi, 227.Google Scholar

^{page 198 note 2} Ibid. 228.

^{page 198 note 3} The History of the town and port of Dover, Dover, 1813-1814, Plan VI.Google Scholar This plan is sometimes bound in the first volume, and sometimes in the second.

^{page 199 note 1} Lond. 1808, iv, 845.

^{page 199 note 2} These are the dimensions as given in the Chronicle. The nearest contemporary plans we have to check them by are Eldred's of 1641, to be referred to presently, but these two plans agree neither with each other nor with the dimensions given in Holinshed. Moreover, the scales given by Eldred cannot in any way be relied on. Alterations to the Pent since that date, especially the New Bridge of 1800, which has taken the place of Brunyar's Bridge of 1585, make it impossible to check the dimensions with the modern plan with any accuracy. The plan of 1595 (pl. xlii) has no scale, but the proportions of the two walls agree fairly well with the figures given by Holinshed.

^{page 200 note 1} Perambulation of Kent, London, 1596, 148.Google Scholar

^{page 201 note 2} This plan (pl. xli) can be most usefully compared in every particular with that of 1595 (pl. xlii). It can be safely dated as between 1584 and 1592, and is one of the most instructive plans remaining of that crucial time in the history of the harbour.

^{page 201 note 1} The numbers in the text are those on the plan.

^{page 204 note 1} On the Ordnance map it is 106.

^{page 204 note 2} Taken down in 1819.

^{page 204 note 3} Taken down in 1683.

^{page 204 note 4} On the large plan these plots are not shown as built on, probably they could hardly be, but on the general plan houses are marked along the course of every street. A few even appear on the seaward side of the Pent, where the York Hotel stood later.

^{page 204 note 5} Sic, but the date of the Charter is 6th October 1606.

^{page 205 note 1} Probably named from Sir Thomas Hamon, deputy warden 1615-20.

^{page 205 note 2} This chapel is shown on most of the plans.

^{page 205 note 3} Vol. i, 193.

^{page 206 note 1} Arch. xi, 227.Google Scholar

^{page 206 note 2} The present width of this wall is 152 ft.; no doubt making up its sides as quay walls, as they now are, has added considerably to the width.

^{page 207 note 1} Digges had put in one sluice, and this was rebuilt in 1597. One was probably found insufficient, and a second had been added. They are distinguished on the plan as the Old and the New.

^{page 207 note 2} This name became later ‘Snargate Street over the Sluice’, and later still ‘Union Street’.

^{page 207 note 3} This is confirmed by the plan of 1595 (pl. xlii and cf. p. 201).

^{page 207 note 4} Jacob Braemes also occupied a site on the opposite side of the harbour, at the north end of Strond Street, next to which lay a site held by Arnold, his son. They were a family of foreign origin and must have held a very prominent position in Dover at this date and for many years afterwards. Jacob we first meet with in 1621, when he was a Customer of Dover. They do not seem to have been members of the foreign church which existed at Dover at this date, at least their names do not appear directly in its registers, but they evidently were in close relation with its members, for Arnold is spoken of as landlord of the premises in which the church met in 1659, and in 1646 and 1647 his wife Margaret acts as godmother, and he himself in 1660 as godfather, at baptisms which took place in the foreign church in those years,– Registers of the French Church at Dover; privately printed by Crisp, F. A., 1888Google Scholar.

^{page 208 note 1} There is no contemporary evidence as to the exact arrangements of this cross wall at the time of its erection, but we know from Perry's report that a gate existed in 1718.

^{page 208 note 2} P. R. O., Ex. K. R., Special Commissions, 6266, m. 4.

^{page 209 note 1} This is not the crane which had stood on the inward prolongation of the Black Bulwark, but another situated on the ground now occupied by the railway goods wharf, in front of Clarence Place, then Crane Street.

^{page 209 note 2} Thirteen sites are shown in the plan of 1641 on this, the harbour side of Strond Street, with all the occupiers' names, but Hamond is not among them at that date.

^{page 210 note 1} This dock was later occupied as part of the Navy Victualling Yard, but it vanished when the quay line was made continuous in 1871.

^{page 210 note 2} Pl. xliii.

^{page 211 note 1} Huguenot Society, Proceedings, iii, 296.Google Scholar

^{page 211 note 2} Ibid. iv, 100.

^{page 211 note 3} Lyon, , op. cit. i, 148Google Scholar, says that at that date the Strond Street ‘New Buildings’ were used as the Custom House. He dates their erection as in 1662, but is here clearly wrong. He adds, ‘they’, i.e. the Braemes, ‘had a grant of the beach on the opposite side of the basin on which they erected a square pile of buildings for storehouses. They were then in the expectation of Dover being made a free port.’ He is here referring to the two large blocks of land held by the Braemes on the east side of the harbour, on one of which were the ‘New Buildings’ of 1676. These warehouses survived until 1808, when they were burnt down. At that time they were known as the ‘Old Buildings’. This suggests a simple and not altogether improbable explanation of the difficulty noted above, that is that ‘New’ is used in the report of the Commission in error for ‘Old’, and that in 1676 they were really known as Braemes's ‘Old Buildings’, in contradistinction to his newer buildings on the opposite side of the harbour. Even reports of Commissioners are not impeccable.

^{page 211 note 4} Quoted in Worthington's Proposed plan for improving Dover Harbour (Dover, 1838)Google Scholar, from the Harbour MSS.

^{page 212 note 1} London, 1721.

^{page 212 note 2} The serious condition of the harbour at about this period is well illustrated in a paper in Arch. Can. xxxii.Google Scholar

^{page 213 note 1} B. M. King's Lib. xvi, 46.

^{page 214 note 1} This is Brunyar's bridge of Eldred's plan. The name had passed through an intermediate stage, Bruggins.

^{page 214 note 2} The engraving is well known; the original, a drawing in Indian ink, and wanting the lettering, is in my possession.

^{page 214 note 3} So accurate is Buck, that one recognizes this building by comparing it with the drawing by J. P. Neale, in the collection formed by the late Mr. Martin Mowll of Dover, reproduced in Huguenot Society, Proceedings, iv, 101. It was used by the French Church up to 1731, and must have become the Custom House between that date and 1739. Possibly, however, only one room was occupied by the Church, in which case the Custom House may have been established here earlier.

^{page 215 note 1} From a picture by Richard Wilson, which I have never been able to trace. The engraving is dedicated to the Duke of Dorset.

^{page 217 note 1} Extensive repairs had already been made to this in 1791.

^{page 218 note 1} The ‘memorial’ presented to the Commissioners on the 30th of August, 1803, is set out at length in An Historical Sketch of the town of Dover, Dover, 1807.Google Scholar

^{page 220 note 1} Memorial of the inhabitants of Dover to the King, quoted in Worthington's Proposed Plan for improving Dover Harbour, Dover, 1838Google Scholar.

^{page 221 note 1} Op. cit. supra.

^{page 222 note 1} This was one of four forts built in 1784 along the sea front. The other three were Guildford, under the Castle cliff; North, opposite to where the New Bridge of 1800 crossed the upper end of the Pent; and Townsend, on the site of the South Eastern Railway Station.

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