One thing that fascinates me about our history is how it ‘fits together’ and underlies our present. That’s why Ice to Athelstan – The Emergence of England, and hopefully its sequels, seeks to follow the landscape and the visible signs of history that remain accessible today.
One such area is Dover at the far south-east of England, which has seen more than its fair share of the perils of being so close to the Continent. When we visited Dover Castle on a cool but bright September day, , we could clearly make out in the distance the dark smudge of the French coast around Calais, with the famed white cliffs of Dover unseen below us. A group of us had come mainly to see Dover Castle, a major attraction of the area, especially with its labyrinthine network of Wartime and Spur tunnels.
But it was the vast bulk of the castle that dominates the top of the hill inside its great walls. The current castle building dates from around 1180, late in the reign of Henry II, designed, as the guide explained, as a form of luxury hotel and first stop in England for the increasing numbers of overseas royalty and dignitaries on their way to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, some 20 miles inland.
That’s an irony in itself, given Henry’s association with Beckett’s murder, especially as Henry died before his castle was finished. Adjacent to the castle on another ridged mound, a striking round tower and an unusual church stand out. Both the former, a Roman pharos or lighthouse set within the Roman camp of the time, and the church, named St Mary in Castro (in the camp), also act as reminders that this site covers well over a thousand years of history. The pharos is a reminder of an active Roman presence here, monitoring ships approaching across the Channel. The church is intriguing, with conspicuous layers of red Roman brick between stone layers in the construction. Was this evidence of the Saxons building on an early Roman structure or of Saxon use of displaced Roman brick in their own construction? Most Saxon churches were built of wood, now long-perished, making this one even more special. Key parts may even date back to the evangelical times of the mission of St Augustine.
