More information : Dover is situated at the shortest crossing point between Britain and the continent. Since prehistoric times it has served as the Gateway of England. The Dover Gap takes the form of a deep, narrow valley cut by the River Dour. In Roman times this was a 200m wide tidal estuary but today it is no more than a small stream about 8m across and less than 1m deep. Land-submergence, silting, shore-drift and human factors have all been responsible for these considerable changes.
In late Neolithic times a settlement existed close to the estuary mouth and during the Middle Bronze Age a vessel carrying weapons from the Continent was wrecked under the cliffs, having failed to make the Dover Gap, and its submerged cargo was found in 1974 (TR 34 SW/88).
In late Iron Age times the Eastern Heights were almost certainly occupied by a major hill-fort (TR 34 SW 99). The first large-scale development of the estuary as a port was in the second century when the Roman fleet established its British headquarters on the west bank (TR 34 SW/2). A corresponding harbour was formed in the estuary with a substantial outer sea-wall crossing its axis (TR 34 SE/63). Little is known about the harbour in Anglo-Saxon times, but it appears that post-Roman land submergence caused massive silting of the Roman harbour and that by 1086 only a narrow river marked its site.
In medieval times, Dover became the chief Cinque port. The exact sites of the medieval harbour and water-front are not known but continued silting and the severe storms of the 13th century caused continual problems. By the end of the 15th century the harbour-works had moved more than 1km west to the Archcliffe area and a shingle bar seems to have blocked off most of the original estuary. From about 1495 a succession of new harbours and water-fronts, shown on later maps, was built in the Archcliffe area and included towers, piers and sluices. These are now mostly covered by port installations. It was hereabouts that the Dover Harbour Board was granted its Royal Charter in 1606 by which time the settlement had expanded to infill the area between the new harbour and the ancient town (see illustration card).
In the early twentieth century the construction of three huge sea-walls created an enclosed military harbour of some 750 acres. Today Dover is the premier transit port in Britain. (1)
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