Day 3 Dover and Deal

Day 3 Dover & Deal castles

5 worlds in one are to be found at Dover Castle, Roman, Norman, Medieval, Napoleonic and World War II. You can spend many hours if not all day here, such as exploring the eerily quiet tunnels from the siege of 1216. The Norman keep dressed out as if Henry II was living here in 1190. The furniture and tapestries are faithfully recreated and as you wander about the Halls and galleries there are ghostly holograms to help guide you and tell the story. The World war II tunnels have a different exhibition telling the story of the build up to war and the dramatic rescue of 338,000 Allied troops from the French coast. Henry VIII passed through here on his way to the Field of the Cloth of Gold in France. There is a painting at Hampton Court Palace of the occasion with all the treasure ships just leaving England. Is this where Henry secretly married Anne Boleyn? Deal castle built in a hurry in 1540 by Henry VIII and has been maintained virtually intact ever since as a fortress to protect this part of the coastline. It is a clover leaf design so that wherever you are standing on the casements you have protective support fire from somewhere else. The castle is the middle one of three built at the same time to protect this vulnerable beach which is ideal to land an army. The range of the cannons overlap with each of the other two castles so they were well designed and sighted.

Anne of Cleves first set foot in England here after a long winter journey from the Rhineland. Anne still had a few days to travel yet before that fateful meeting with Henry VIII at Rochester . Somewhere in her entourage of 126 people was a violinist, such an instrument had never been seen in England before. So I think she should be credited with a lot more than just being the Kings Reject!