Newsletter August 1997

The Cover Picture: FROM IVAN GREEN’S COLLECTION

Ivan has kindly provided us with these explanatory notes.
 

This old print shows the Castle as it was before the anti-Napoleon alterations. These brutal modifications, made to convert the ancient building into an 18th century strong point housing many guns, were part of the extensive campaign to repel threatened invasions by Napoleon’s French armies.

 

Ancient crenulations were dismantled to permit guns to be mounted on the tops of the towers, the old roof of the Keep was pulled down and the present brick ceiling installed in its place, both to safeguard the interior from stray shots and to permit the top of the Keep to be used by the defenders. Elaborate defences were added to the exterior, especially in, near and under St. John’s Tower and the old North Gate. Extensive earthworks were dug around the exterior of the castle walls and great earthen banks were piled up against the stone walls. It had been proved that the ball ammunition fired from the guns of the time splintered stone, making it fly off on all directions in the form of sharpened flakes, thus providing a lethal form of stone shrapnel. Instead the earthen banks absorbed the ball ammunition, progressively destroying its velocity and bringing it harmlessly to rest, buried deep inside them.

 

PAGE

FULL NEWSLETTER

  Committee
1 Editorial
4 Planning Sub-Committee Report - Jeremy Cope
5 Projects Up-Date - John Owen
7 1997 Annual General Meeting - Terry Sutton
8 March Meeting Discussion Groups - The Editor
9 Plaque to Unknown Warrior - Terry Sutton
10 Revels in Ramsgate. (K.F.A.S. AGM) - Jack Woolford
10 K.F.A.S Spring Conference - Pride of Place - Jack Woolford
12 Festival of Dover - The Launch - Terry Sutton
13 Hooked
13 One Member Reports - Sheila R. Cope
14 Organiser's Review - Donna Sowerby
16 Membership News - Sheila R. Cope
17 A Castle, a Railway and a Garden - Hugh Bax
21 Dover Castle Introduction by The Editor
22 A Pocket-Book Story of Dover Castle - Ivan Green
24 The Future of Dover Castle - Audrey Kirk
25 Armed Raiders at the Castle - Terry Sutton
26 Review: Ivan Green's Colour Guide to Dover - Merril Lilley
27 Guide Friday - The Editor
28 White Cliffs Countryside Project - Update - Paul Holt
29 Deux Cents Radonneurs Francais Dans Le Kent - Leo Wright
39 Wartime Dover - Maurice Wilson
32 Dover Boyhood Blitz - S. S. G. Hale
34 The 1997 Audited Annual Statement - The Treasurer
36 Cruise Welcome Group - Merril Lilley
36 University of the Third Age - The Editor
44 This and That - Dover Chat - The Editor
  Programme
  Adverts

No 28

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