St. Martin’s Battery is a gun position on the Western Heights adjacent to a modern car park, situated as to command a position to protect the harbour. It has a sequence of stages of construction from Victorian times to World War Two and was built to replace the ageing 1853 Drop Battery and named after Saint Martin, the Patron Saint of Dover.
The battery was first constructed between 1874 and 1877 for three heavy 10-inch Rifled Muzzle Loading guns in three concrete pit emplacements with a raised platform for each gun. The guns were mounted on curved rails that allowed them to be traversed to the required direction. In front of the guns, the parapet was raised to protect the battery from incoming shells. The construction also contained a large artillery store in a separate building. Small artillery stores were constructed between each gun and a magazine was built cut into the hillside on the other side of South Military Road.
The battery was, of course, never used defensively, but it was fired regularly by both the Royal Artillery, and by both the Kent Artillery Militia and the Cinque Ports Artillery Volunteers for practice. For example, during the May 1890 ‘Bombardment of Dover’ Review, the battery fired with half-charge blank ammunition at gunboats in the harbour in a mock defence.
The battery was disarmed by 1902, its defensive role being superseded by the new Citadel Battery with its much longer range and modern 9.2-inch guns, and South Front Battery with 6-inch guns, both designed to provide cover for the new Admiralty harbour. The empty site then became effectively redundant for nearly forty years.
Following the fall of France and during the invasion crisis of 1940, in September work recommenced on the site to re-utilise it. It was rearmed with three old 6-inch guns for coastal defence with the work being completed in May 1941. The Victorian open gun pits were concreted in, new brick emplacements built providing cover and protection and each gun was protected with a shield. The battery was then covered in earth to protect it from strafing and shrapnel, and two pillboxes built, one on top of the battery, and an Anti-Aircraft machine gun emplaced in a sandbagged position. The full compliment of the battery was 143 men.
The battery remained operational until 1944. The guns were finally removed from the site in 1947.
The site is now being slowly revitalised with work parties from WHPS and the White Cliffs Countryside Partnership (WCCP) reclaiming some of the site overtaken by decades of natural growth with a view to increasing accessibility and deter anti-social and damaging behaviour.
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