The Battle of Britain Homes

There was a fund launched in 1945 to create the Battle of Britain Memorial Hospital in Dover. Winston Churchill had stated that "The Union Jack of Freedom will for ever fly from the White Cliffs of Dover". Names of airmen who had died in the Battle would be preserved in the hospital.

However, with the beginning of the NHS in 1948 the monies in the fund were no longer needed. It was decided instead to use much of the money to builds residential homes in the area of York Street. In memory, once they were built, they retained the name "Battle of Britain" 

We believe these stamps may have been sold for fund raising for the hospital, and/or used to decorate postal envelopes to help advertise the campaign. 

Thanks to Dean Sumner for the picture   

An evocative reminder of the dangers faced by citizens of our frontline town, is the ARP post by Dover Priory station. It has reinforced walls and roof and a baffled entrance to protect against blasts. The structure is listed.

People who grew up in Dover will also remember the many pillboxes around the area - and probably will have played in them! A useful map is here. Other mementoes include anti-tank pimples in various places around the town and reconstructed houses, for example at Mayfield Avenue and Barton Road, and at Glenfield Road, where the numbers of the houses are no longer completely sequential.

The bell hanging above was taken from the Belgians by the Germans in the War 1914-1918 and fixed on The Mole at Zeebrugge to give warning of approaching aircraft and naval attacks by the Allies. It was presented to the corporation of Dover by HM the King of the Belgians through Vice-Admiral Sir Roger Keyes Bart KCB KCVO etc as a souvenir of the Naval Raid on Zeebrugge on St George's Day 1918

This grappling iron is one of many used by the British Eascort and the Royal Marines to hold HMS Vindictive against the Mole during the raid on Zeebrugge on 23^rd April 1918. 

Made at Chatham Dockyard, it bears the scars it received during the fierce battle when the raiding party landed in the face of heavy enemy gunfire at point blank range.

The Zeebrugge Bell above the Town Hall is rung at noon on the anniversary each year by the Town Mayor. It commemorates the raid, the success of which denied the enemy use of the Belgian canal for the remainder of the war. 

Eight Victoria Crosses were awarded for a battle lasting only 70 minutes

Royal Marines Association

City of London Branch  

A ceremony is held each year, prior to the ringing of the bell, at St James' cemetery, Dover, where some of the casualties and Roger Keyes, Admiral of the Fleet 1st Baron Keyes, GCB KCVO CMG DSO are buried.

Named after the welcoming Soldier's Club in Poperinghe, Belgium, Toc H is committed to building a more fair  society. In Dover it had strong links with the Boys' Grammar

St James Church. was nearly destroyed in WWII by shells fired from France by enemy gunners. The ruins were kept to form a monument for Dovorians, encapsulating in stone the bombardment they had suffered.

The church dated from Saxon times, and was also used until 1831 as an official court for the Barons of the Cinque Ports. The last Lord Warden to preside here was the Duke of Wellington

left - the monument, and right, the chip, below the name "Rohilcund"

The Rifles monument in Camden Square was chipped during the first moonlight raid on Dover on 23 January 1916 by an enemy seaplane which dropped nine bombs. The second bomb fell in the middle of the road outside Cambridge Terrace, chipping the memorial.

The fourth killed Harry Sladden at the Red Lion Inn and injured three other men. Subsequent bombs injured three children and an elderly woman..

On the post-war Buckland housing estate, the roads were named in honour of the many Allies of World War II  Here are some of the many examples

This flowerbed, on the lawns in front of the Gateway Flats, is designed to represent the Norwegian flag. The plaque (right) in the bed reads:

This plaque honours the men of
the Royal Norwegian Navy
who operated from Dover between
1940 - 1945
. . .
23rd May 1998

Dover Grammar School for Boys unveiled on 11th November 2010 a weathervane in commemoration of The Few and other airmen who were former pupils of the school. The weathervane was designed by Harry Platts and dedicated by Revd Andy Bawtree

The design represents aircraft taking off over the White Cliffs of Dover.

Cast in 1895 at a foundry in Smethwick, this bell was hung in the harbour as a navigational aid to shipping. The triangular indentation on the rim is believed to have been caused by enemy fire around the time of the Battle of Britain. The bell is now in the de Bradelei Wharf shopping outlet, Cambridge Road, Dover

The bell (right) stands in the foyer of Harbour House, Dover Harbour Board, Waterloo Crescent, on the seafront at Dover.  We have been unable to confirm whether it is the bell from HMS Glatton, sunk in Dover Harbour on 16 September 1918. If you have any further information, please let us know 

On 6 November 1967, the bell from the  hospital ship Maid of Kent (left), was presented by Herr Egedius Wagner to British Railways Southern Region on the bridge of SS Maid of Kent. The hospital ship was sunk in Dieppe Harbour on 21 May 1940, and Herr Wagner had had the bell since 1944.  The bell used to be in the foyer of Southern House, formerly the Lord Warden Hotel, Dover, where it was unveiled on 21 May 1982; it is now in the foyer of the Transport Museum, Dover (below)

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There are two plaques beneath the Maid of Kent bell (left) The first dates from the placing of the bell on the second "Maid of Kent", and reads: "This bell once belonged to the previous SS "Maid of Kent", a railway passenger ship laucnhed in 1925, bombed and sunk at Dieppe in 1940. It was returned to this ship, which carries her name by Herr Egedius Wagner of Niedersessmar, Rhineland, Germany, on 6th November 1967."

The second dates from the placing of the bell at Southern House, and reads: "This bell was taken from the S/S Maid of Kent II, which was withdrawn from service in 1982. It was placed here on 21st May 1982 in the presence of the survivors of the 1940 incident at Dieppe, in Memory of their colleagues." 

The local Cinque Ports battalion of the Territorial Force mustered in Dover Castle in 1914 before travelling to the Front. The officers of the battalion presented the church of St Mary in Castro with a clock for the vestry in token of their appreciation. Many members of the battalion lost their lives.

A sculpture of a life-sized Spitfire was unveiled on 22 December 2014 at the Cruise Terminal, Dover. Designed to mark the Christmas truce of 1914, it was created by Anthony Heywood from the university of Creative Arts, Canterbury, and is entitled "The Dove of Peace".

From an idea originating in 1994, the sculpture weighs a little under seventeen hundredweight and is constructed from steel and some 8,500 gallons of acid-free paper especially developed at the former Buckland Paper Mill, Dover.

The scuplture was previously shown in the Netherlands and in Hartlepool. Unveiled during a ceremony including readings from letters from the trenches and carols in English and German which were sung during the truce, it will remain in place until the centenary of the Armistice.