Dover Castle

Dover Castle is the earliest example in Europe of a concentrically-planned castle. Building of its walls began in 1168 under Henry II on the site of prehistoric ramparts; they were strengthened in the 13th and 14th C by massive circular constructions. The central Norman keep, built in 1180, houses an extensive local history museum. A special exhibition, comparable to the D-Day Museum in Portsmouth, concerns events during World War II, including the Battle of Britain and D-Day. It also proves interesting to visit the Napoleonic casemates and underground passages reactivated in World War II. In clear weather it is possible to see from the castle walls as far as Calais on the French coast, to where the chalk crest extended thousands of years ago. The ruins of the Roman lighthouse, and the church of St Mary in Castle next to Calton's Gate, built from Roman bricks by the Saxons in the year 1000, have been incorporated into the castle complex. The walls of the fortress are 95 feet high and 21 feet thick. Beneath is is a labyrinth of secret tunnels, dug in the late 18th C and first used during the Napoleonic Wars. In World War II, these tunnels served as the nerve center for Operation Dynamo, Churchill's famous evacuation of British and French forces from Dunkirk.

More recently, Dover Castle served as the location for the Mel Gibson film version of Hamlet.