The spot is not, nowadays, of romantic appearance. Modern military barracks are utilitarian rather than beautiful. Sometimes they have even a note of squalor.
Some large fragments of concrete, reared up on end in the Drop Redoubt, form what is called the Bredenstone, or Braidenstone, once sometimes called the “Kissing Stone,” for ages an object of traditional veneration; why, none knew. They combined something of the majesty of the unknown, like that belonging to the Coronation Stone in Westminster Abbey, with a good deal of the half-humorous importance of the famous Blarney Stone. Really, they were, and are, after all, remaining portions of the vanished Roman pharos buried in the eighteenth century, when the Drop Redoubt was constructed, on the spot called the “Devil’s Drop.” From time immemorial the Lords Warden of the Cinque Ports had been sworn in upon this Ara Cæsaris, as antiquaries styled it; and after the platform and the “Bredenstone” were exhumed, about 1854, Palmerston was sworn in on the spot, in 1861; and Lord Dufferin in 1891. Lord Salisbury, however, and later holders of the office, were installed in the town, in the grounds of Dover College, on the site of the ancient Priory of St. Martin; but on July 18th, 1914, the old traditional site was resumed, when the new Lord Warden, Earl Beauchamp, was installed on these heights.
In 1823 Cobbett found Dover “like other seaport towns; but really much more clean, and with less blackguard people in it than I ever observed in any seaport before.” Things have changed since then, in a woeful way, and with Dover’s growth has come squalor and dirt.
He visited the Western Heights, to see with his own eyes, as he tells us, “something of the sorts of means that had been made use of to squander away countless millions of money. Here,” he continues, “is a hill containing, probably, a couple of square miles or more, hollowed like a honeycomb. Here are line upon line, trench upon trench, cavern upon cavern, bomb-proof upon bomb-proof; in short, the very sight of the thing convinces you that either madness the most humiliating, or profligacy the most scandalous must have been at work here for years. The question that every man of sense asks, is: What reason had you to suppose that the French would ever come to this hill to attack it, while the rest of the country was so much more easy to assail? However, let any man of good, plain understanding, go and look at the works that have here been performed, and that are now all tumbling into ruin. Let him ask what this cavern was for; what that ditch was for; what this tank was for; and why all these horrible holes and hiding-places at an expense of millions upon millions? Let this scene be brought and placed under the eyes of the people of England, and let them be told that Pitt and Dundas and Perceval had these things done to prevent the country from being conquered; with voice unanimous the nation would instantly exclaim: Let the French, or let the devil take us, rather than let us resort to means of defence like these.
“This is, perhaps, the only set of fortifications in the world ever framed for mere hiding. There is no appearance of any intention to annoy an enemy. It is a parcel of holes made in a hill, to hide Englishmen from Frenchmen. Just as if the Frenchmen would come to this hill! Just as if they would not go (if they came at all) and land in Romney Marsh, or on Pevensey Level, or anywhere else, rather than come to this hill; rather than come to crawl up Shakespeare’s Cliff. All the way along the coast, from this very hill to Portsmouth, or pretty nearly all the way, is a flat. What the devil should they come to this hill for, then? And when you ask this question, they tell you that it is to have an army here behind the French, after they had marched into the country! And for a purpose like this; for a purpose so stupid, so senseless, so mad as this, and withal, so scandalously disgraceful, more brick and stone have been buried in this hill than would go to build a neat new cottage for every labouring man in the counties of Kent and Sussex!”
Cobbett here gives way to a fit of senseless vituperation; the more obviously senseless since this rabid tirade comes only two days later than his ride along the coast from New Romney to Hythe and Folkestone, where of course he encountered the martello towers; erected there for the purpose of guarding those levels against a threatened invasion. He raves at them equally as he raves at the works on the Western Heights, and, in short, behaves on the principle of the Irishman who acted on the policy of “whenever you see a head, hit it.” It is very fine fighting form, but it is the very negation of logic.
CHAPTER XX
THE CHANNEL PASSAGE—THE NATIONAL HARBOUR AND ITS STRATEGIC PURPOSE—SWIMMING AND FLYING THE CHANNEL
Dover has ever been a favourite port with travellers. The advantage of lying near to the opposite coast determined its fortunes from the earliest times, for sea-sickness has naturally always rendered the shortest passage the most popular. Little need, then, it might be thought for proclamations and Acts of Parliament insisting upon this being the port of arrival and departure. Yet we find enactments in the reign of Edward the Third not only regulating “the fares of the passage of Dover” (1330), but in 1335 a law passed that “no pilgrim shall pass out of the Realm, but at Dover.” This was supplemented in 1464–5 by an ordinance, “For compelling persons to take passage and land at Dover.”
They well knew, those old travellers, the miseries of mal-de-mer; the rich and powerful among them no less than the poorer sort, and it was one of these—none other than the great Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent and Chief Justiciar of Kent, who, about 1208, founded the Maison Dieu, with its establishment of Master, brethren, and sisters, for the lodging, and entertainment of “poor strangers and pilgrims on their way beyond seas.” It may be supposed that pilgrims coming as well as going were guests of this charitable establishment. In fact, they did you so well at this place that several shabby-minded monarchs and their retinues, and others who were certainly not poor, did not scruple to quarter themselves here. King John, who was mean enough for anything, set this fashion. A somewhat older place of sojourn for travellers was in St. Martin’s Priory, where the Strangers’ Hall, of Late Norman architecture, is still to be seen. The manor of Archer’s Court, some three miles out of Dover, is associated with the sea, in a quaint tenure, by which the owner held it of the King on condition that “he should hold the King’s head when he passes to Calais, and by the working of the sea should be obliged to vomit.”