# Citadel Battery, Dover. April 09



## godzilla73 (Apr 15, 2009)

Citadel Battery is probably the least visited of the remaining battery sites around Dover, probably because its not obvious where it is, but also because its virtually in the backyard of Her Majesty's Young Offenders Institution, Western Heights, which may put people off! Bob Ogley's book, _Kent at War _maintains that there were two 9 inch guns here , but there are three emplacements. It was manned by the Royal Artillery,(seems obvious, but not all the batteries in Dover were - Swingate and Langdon were manned by both the Royal Marines and the US Army at various points) and was meant to be a mirror site to the ones at Langdon and Fan Bay. Along with the Farthingloe AA Battery ( see separate report) , it forms quite a large complex, though it is not immediately obvious how to find it. If anyone needs a little local direction, PM me. Anyway, here are the pics.

The three emplacements, of which number two is probably the best preserved and the least graffittied/vandalized














The bolt fixings for the bottom of each gun are still in place. The size of them along with the channels underneath, confirm that these were the third biggest guns in "Hellfire Corner" when it was in the thick of it.










The channel runs off to the right side of each emplacement through a small tunnel, just big enough to crawl through





There were also obviously various hatches and doors which have all been filled in at the sides of each emplacement









Emplacement number one still has quite a lot of ironwork in it, which does seem to be from the base of the original gun, but someone more knowledgeable than me might have a different opinion on this.









Each emplacement is connected to the other by a set of steps and a raised walkway, and below this is what was clearly the entrance to an underground foxhole. These have all been filled in, but a fitter bloke than me could probably get down and have a nosey around underneath number 2, where someone has obviously been digging!













At the end of number three emplacement there is a funny looking pillbox - I say funny looking because it has a sheer drop into a square concrete boxwith a concrete pole in the middle of it. Off this is an extremely small entrance to the actual pillbox. If anyone knows why this is this way, let me know.













If you jump up on to the top here you can get a good view back across all three emplacements and the Western Heights. Unfortunately the weather wasn't that great when I was up there.





Behind the three emplacements are the remains of what was probably a command building.





You can exit this part of the site and walk along a concrete path to the site of the Farthingloe AA battery, which is about half a mile down the way. The remains of the entrance suggest that there might have been a gun fixed to it, which shows how important these batteries were and that this whole Western Heights complex was really significant. Its interesting to know also, that the detached bastion and the Drop Redoubt were, during WWII home to a suicide squad of Royal Marines whose job it was to blow up the entire docks and all the batteries to the east and west of Dover if the Germans ever actually invaded!

The entrance exit gate





The path to the Farthingloe AA battery





Anyone who wants to know more should drop me a line. This is well worth a visit, but it seems to be less visited than some of the other bits of Dover.

GDZ


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## Urban Mole (Apr 16, 2009)

Nice report matey, that 2nd to last pic is a Spigot Motar.

And heres battery on the island, thats quite complete, just so you know how the platforms should look;


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## sheep21 (Apr 16, 2009)

cracking site, i found a very similiar concrete gun position at sheerness. wonder if it was a 9.2" one too?

Great to see so much ironwork still extant


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## godzilla73 (Apr 16, 2009)

Thanks Sheep/Urban Mole - I knew that you guys would have the answers!!!


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## Foxylady (Apr 17, 2009)

Fabulous battery, GDZ. Interesting to see so many remains.
I've seen the unusual kind of pillbox somewhere before, but can't find it now. However, I'm pretty sure that the open embrasure was for light artillery and the concrete post presumably was the base for the gun.  
I seem to have forgotten more than I've learnt so I could be mistaken, though!


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## godzilla73 (Apr 17, 2009)

Yeah - the thing with that pillbox was that the entrance to it was door shaped, but tiny. very odd!


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## smiffy (Apr 17, 2009)

Thats a great report fella...I had a real good mooch around the Wanstone Farm and also St Margarets Batteries on my way over to France in 2004 both of which are mighty impressive but managed to miss this one out somehow....... duuh! Cheers !..........


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## jonney (Apr 17, 2009)

Great report mate, The pole in the middle of the funny looking pillbox looks like it was a range finder for the guns. It would sight through the notch in the top of the wall. There probably was another entrance to the pillbox. Judging by the photo 15 the doorway has been back filled with soil over the years and there would have been steps up from the pillbox to the range finder. Looks like the pillbox would also have given shelter and protection to the people using the range finder. It#'s a type 23 pillbox


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## godzilla73 (Apr 17, 2009)

Thanks for that Jonney - I hadn't even noticed the notch in the wall until you mentioned it. Apparently, there is a magazine tunnel underneath this battery, but most of the entrance were filled in enough for me not to be able to have a good look. Going doen through one of those foxholes might be a way in though.


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## DigitalNoise (Apr 18, 2009)

Nice nice, I was tempted to have a loko at this but theres only so many hours in the day!

Is it a pillbox with a light AA emplacement?


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## godzilla73 (Apr 19, 2009)

DigitalNoise said:


> Nice nice, I was tempted to have a loko at this but theres only so many hours in the day!
> 
> Is it a pillbox with a light AA emplacement?



Don't know - that would seem odd given the proximity of the AA battery at Farthingloe - but as you rightly put it, it was probably the busiest battery in the country!!!


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## mazuk (Apr 20, 2009)

Wouldn't it of made more sense to have an mg emplacement were that spigot mortar was placed? i mean armour would have a hard time getting up that coastal track.


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