Archcliffe Fort

The fort was manned during the First World War but in the 1920s much of it was demolished to allow for improvements to be made to the South Eastern Main Line railway.

The fort was deemed obsolete by the time of the Second World War and was decommissioned in 1956, after which further demolition took place to widen the A20 road.

The fort is used by the Emmaus Community to house formerly homeless people and operates a furniture workshop and retail centre.

No traces of the structure remain but plans from the period show a pentagon-shaped building in the approximate location of the current western bastion.

The plans show that the watchtower was connected by a ditch to a gatehouse located in the vicinity of the current eastern bastion.

Archcliffe Fort was a rectangular, timber-revetted earth structure enclosing a gunner's house and a number of other buildings.

[2] Archcliffe Fort was equipped with a demi-culverin, two brass sakers, an iron fowler, three serpentines and a dozen bases.

[2] Dover was an important embarkation point for English troops involved in the Eighty Years' War in continental Europe and in the early 17th century James VI and I (r.  1603–1625) ordered repairs made to Archcliffe Fort to improve the port's defences.

James' successor Charles I (r. 1624–1649) ordered the cliff below the fort to be steepened to make it more difficult for an attacker to scale.

Further repairs were carried out to the walls and gun platforms towards the end of the 17th century when the fort housed 13 iron cannon.

[6][5] During the course of the war quick-firing artillery was installed, intended to be used against enemy troops who might seek to shelter at the cliff face beneath the fort.