To secure the foundations great clamshell grabs with open mouths were lowered to the sea bottom. There they worked their way into the chalky bed, fastening their teeth into it. The larger ones, if they got a good bite, brought up five tons of flint and chalk to fill a railway truck. By this means the upper crust was eaten away until a solid bed was reached.
Divers were then sent down in bells to level the bed ready for the blocks. It was swung out between the platforms by a crane and gradually lowered into the sea, the water being driven out by compressed air. It was lighted by electricity and was almost as bright as day.
The moment the bell touched the ground there was a depth of about 2 feet of water in it. This was quickly driven out by an extra force of compressed air. The Admiralty Pier was extended seawards in the same way as the east arm and south breakwaters were built. On either side of the line of the future wall platforms were mounted on piles to hold the gantry and other cranes. On one of the gantries was mounted a temporary lighthouse which thus advanced as the wall was built.
The man in charge was able to move his bell where he wished by sending signals up to the man in charge of the crane to which the bell was attached. The floor of the sea was uneven and ragged. Four men worked in a bell under a pressure of 27 lb. The material was thrown into a large wooden box, swung in the centre of the bell.
The dress divers, who donned jacket and helmet, worked from small boats. Their work was important and they were responsible for the setting of the blocks under water. It was imperative for these to be evenly and accurately laid. As the great stones were lowered by the tons Goliath cranes, the divers informed the craneman above by signals when the block was in its exact position and when to lower it on to its bed.
They then gave the lewis bolts the necessary twist to disengage them. In other words, the cylindrical cavities left between the blocks were filled in with concrete in bags. The concrete cemented and bound the blocks together. Where the blocks formed the ends of the breakwaters they were further strengthened by being bound to one another with iron bars.
Above low water the courses were bedded and grouted with cement, and the outside blocks above this point were faced with granite, the stones being well bonded into the concrete matrix. While work was progressing on the eastern arm, attention was being paid to the Admiralty Pier. It was doubled in length, that is, to about 3, feet. Because of a revolving gun turret on the old pier head, which it was decided to retain, the pier had to be widened for a distance of some feet to permit the laying of the railway tracks serving the steamship berths.
The blocks for this portion of the works were made in the west block yard. The rate of work was necessarily dependent upon the weather. In rough seas nothing could be done. When the weather was calm, operations continued night and day. It is a testimony to the growth of engineering science that, whereas the old Admiralty Pier, built in , was advanced only 91 feet in a year, the more recently built extension, of equal section, was put together at a yearly rate of feet.
In one particular month the wall was advanced 75 feet and blocks were laid. Because of the strong currents and the depth of the water, block laying was impossible except for three hours on each tide, and on rough days not at all. The east arm or breakwater is 2, feet long. After a gap of feet the south breakwater extends for 4, feet, coming to an end feet away from the 3, feet Admiralty Pier and extension.
The Admiralty Pier was widened to accommodate the Marine Station and the railway lines serving the cross- Channel vessels which berth there. The building of the southern breakwater was among the most difficult of the whole undertaking, because of the exposed position and the great depth of the water.
As with the rest of the undertaking the work was carried on from a strongly built staging. The average depth of the water along the line of the breakwater at spring tides is about 47 feet.
Radical plans to improve the harbour were submitted by the military engineer Thomas Hyde Page and by civil engineers Rennie and Walker. These were rejected in favour of a series of works by James Moon, the resident engineer and harbour master, and Sir Henry Oxenden, a harbour commissioner.
The improvements begun by Moon and Oxenden involved over eighteen years work and saw the building of wet and dry docks in the tidal harbour and a new cross wall with clock and compass towers. The stone quays of the Pent were begun and North and South Piers rebuilt.
This was to have a significant effect on the Port's future. The widening of South Pier included the installation of water jets in its head supplied by pipes in from the wet dock.
These were intended to clear the harbour mouth of shingle. Despite all this work, shingle remained a problem. A further problem during this period was the and building of the wet and dry docks in the tidal harbour unfortunately made the harbour far too small for the number of ships which used it. In Thomas Telford, the famous engineer, submitted plans to improve the sluices and the jets in the south pier.
Telford believed that thorugh increasing the volume of water available with a tunnel between the Basin and the wet dock and by increasing the diameter of the pipe supplying the jets, the harbour mouth could be cleared of shingle. The commissioners recommended extensive works at Dover, Portland, Seaford, and Harwich, with this object in view; to be proceeded with in the order here specified if all could not be advanced simultaneously.
The recommendation was adopted, in its main features, by the Government. The harbour of refuge at Dover is being constructed; there is to be a harbour of acres up ro high water mark, or acres at low water; there is to be an entrance feet wide on the south side, and another feet wide on the east.
The first work will be a pier, running out from the point called Cheeseman's Head into seven fathoms water; it will protect the existing harbour during south-west gales, and will form the first link in the great wall of masonry which will enclose the harbour.
The eastern boundary of the harbour will be far beyond the limits of the present inhabited town of Dover; the harbour will be a mile and a quarter from east to west, and three quarters of a mile from north to south.
The existing contract for a part of the works was taken in July ; the works were commenced in October of the same year; in the masonry was carried out feet from the shore; in this length was increased to feet; in the works were proceeding steadily, until a terrific storm on the night of the 7th of October, produced very disastrous results on the masonry and scaffolding.
Much of the subsequent labour has been in repair of this disaster. The building of the Eastern Arm of the harbour was not commenced until around The harbour as it is today was completed shortly before the Great War, but development continues on new ferry berths and port facilities.
Unlike many small ports along the South Coast, the Port of Dover has resisted the encroachment of sand and shingle to become a very busy harbour catering for passengers, vehicles and freight as well as pleasure craft and, most recently, cruise liners. In the past decades, a great deal of change has occurred in the harbour, with the vast expansion of the Eastern Docks, the closure of the Train Ferry Dock, the building of the International Hoverport now also closed and the creation of the Cruise Liner Terminal from the Marine Station and part of the Admiralty Pier.
There are proposals to make major changes to the Western Docks, filling in the old inner harbour to provide landward facilities for more new freight berths. Plans have also been submitted to reclaim a further piece of land from the sea to form a new exit road from the Eastern Docks to improve traffic flow. The Port has its own police force, with jurisdiction up to a mile from the dock gates which covers a large part of the town , providing armed patrols in the Eastern Docks.
The influence of the Harbour Board spreads a long way from the Port, as large stretches of the M20 motorway are regularly closed to traffic due to Operation Stack; the coast-bound carriageway becomes a temporary lorry park whenever there are major hold-ups at the port, caused by strikes by French ferry workers or bad weather. In order to avoid this in the future, the Board is seeking permission to turn a large area of open countryside outside Dover into a permanent lorry park.
Parliament also agreed to lease the Admiralty Pier to DHB for years and the arrangements were drawn up and signed by the end of Shortly afterwards Edward Druce retired as resident engineer but before work could begin on either the Admiralty or eastern pier the proposals had to be sanctioned by the Board of Admiralty. In September , the first submarine block of the Prince of Wales Pier was laid on the bed of the sea but approval, from the Admiralty, still had not been given for the proposed alterations to the Admiralty Pier.
At this time, the Admiralty was taking a close interest in events on mainland Europe. Bismarck had strived to keep the peace but in , Wilhelm II effectively sacked him and then pursued a massive naval expansion.
This galvanised the British government to consider the construction of a National Harbour on the south coast. In May , when about three-quarters of the Prince of Wales Pier had been built, the Admiralty announced its decision — it was going to use the port of Dover as a base for the Royal Navy.
Map of Admiralty Harbour. Daily Telegraph The extension of Admiralty Pier was to be completed in 8 years and the remainder of the harbour in 10 years. Subcontractors included t wo local firms, one headed by William Adcock and the other Richard Barwick. The proposed new Harbour consisted of:. The erection of an Eastern Arm , 3,feet long from the east cliff at Langdon Hole in a southerly direction from a 3,foot long sea wall reclaiming an area of over twenty acres.
This was separated from the Admiralty Pier extension by a western entrance foot wide and the eastern arm by the eastern entrance feet wide. At the lowest tide, the depth of water in the entrances was to be feet.
It was designed to moor twenty battleships plus a considerable number of smaller naval craft and the finance was provided under various Naval Works Acts. The proposal made it necessary to alter the plans for commercial harbour including the Prince of Wales Pier. Although completed in with a curve at the seaward end, this was to be demolished making the Pier straight.
This was to be used to face massive concrete blocks that would form the main structure of the new harbour walls. Skilled men in many different crafts were recruited, boarding huts, offices, foundries, workshops, repair shops and stores were erected and in the summer of work commenced. Huon Pine was brought from the former penal colony of Dover, Tasmania, see Transportation story , by ship to provide temporary staging around which the new harbour was built.
Admiralty Pier circa with an Ostend ship alongside. Although there was fear, in many quarters of possible German hostility, others believed this to be unfounded.
In August , nearly 2, carrier pigeons arrived from Germany via Ostend on the Belgium mail packet, Princess Josephine to be trained for German military purposes to fly back to a base in Dusseldoff, Cologne. This led to a public outcry, particularly as they were German military pigeons. The following year another birds were brought to England and DHB were assured that they came from Belgium.
The weather was clear and at lower levels there was hardly any wind but at higher levels an easterly was blowing. On reaching the high wind, the birds attempted to face it but then chose a more southerly course. It was reported that none reached their chosen destination in Belgium. Western Block works on Shakespeare beach. Note the low seawall. The second, for the Admiralty Pier, was on what is now Shakespeare beach but then called the Western beach.
The block-making yard on Shakespeare beach was started in the summer of after a low seawall was constructed. By March , the block-making floor, concrete mixers and cement sheds were practically complete, a work yard a goliath had almost been erected and block making was started. Blocks weighed between 24 and tons, were made out of cement, sand and shingle, the latter brought from Rye by train. Block making c Concrete poured into wood moulds that opened at the side when set.
Dover Harbour Board. The concrete was made in large mixers and some blocks were made at any one time. Each mould had a circular convex protrusion at each side that formed a semi-circular indentation in the blocks when placed on the seabed next to each other, forming a cylindrical cavity. After two days the moulds were slackened off and the wood creating the cores were removed. After a further eight days, depending on the weather, the moulds were removed and the blocks carried by goliaths — cranes with a span of feet that could lift tons — to the Admiralty Pier side of the beach.
There they were weighted, dated, numbered and then placed in stacks for at least six weeks until sufficiently cured for use. Diving bell with the men who worked inside to prepare the sea bed being lowered into the sea by a crane. Dover Transport Museum. For the foundations of the new harbour walls, the upper crust of the seabed was removed by great clamshell grabs until the solid seabed was reached. The diving bells, of which there were seven, weighed about tons, feet long and feet wide, and were swung and then lowered into the sea by a crane.
There were about 80 divers working on the project with each diving bell with space for up to six men. On reaching the seabed, it was usual for some water to have leaked into the bell, often about 2-feet. This was driven out by compressed air. Each bell was lit by electricity with the lights being placed close to the thick glass windows. They dug up the seabed using mechanical shovels until it was smooth and level. The material excavated was put into a large box and taken to the surface. Throughout operations, the divers were in contact with the crane driver by mechanical means.
Helping the divers were men working from open rowing boats. Huon pine staging posts across which a lattice of steel girders were bolted and on these, heavy timber platforms were laid. Huon pine staging posts, measuring some feet from top to bottom and inches square, were floated into position between empty barrels. Two sets of six iron-shod posts were driven into the seabed every feet opposite one another by pile drivers.
The platforms were approximately feet above the high water mark. Gradually the staging was built out to sea from both the Admiralty Pier and on the eastern side, what was to be the Eastern arm of the new Admiralty Harbour. Between the piers, the concrete blocks were lowered by ton goliath cranes. Between the piers, the concrete blocks were laid by a ton goliath crane lowering the blocks into the sea. Divers not working from within bells then put these into place.
The blocks that formed the ends of the Arms and the Breakwater were bound together with iron bars. Admiralty Pier construction design. Budge Adams collection Dover Museum. The bottom of the new harbour walls were feet wide decreasing to feet wide at the top and was perpendicular on the harbour side and stepped on the seaward side. As the concrete walls were completed, the cement blocks above the low water mark were bedded and grouted with cement and faced with granite blocks between one and five tons each.
Admiralty Pier extension construction. By October , due to the ongoing construction of the Prince of Wales Pier, the area between that Pier and Admiralty Pier was increasingly subject to a heavy swell that, at times, made it impossible to berth alongside Admiralty Pier. During such conditions, ships were diverted to Folkestone. The Admiralty said that the contract for the Admiralty Pier extension was to be completed two years less than the remainder of the works but they would give these works even higher priority.
Widening of the Admiralty Pier around the Turret, the old lighthouse on top of the Turret is on the right and the new temporary tall one is on the left. The old small lighthouse close to the Turret that had been moved to the roof was replaced and much later was demolished. Initially a taller temporary steel lighthouse, feet high came on station in August , while another lighthouse was mounted on top of the most seaward of the cranes and was moved forward as construction of the Pier extension progressed.
To supplement these the Admiralty brought in a lightship that was moored at the end of the works and fog signalling apparatus was installed. Lightships were also in place off the end of the Eastern Arm works and Southern Breakwater; however, they were all vulnerable to weather and collisions from other ships. The first lightship off the Admiralty Pier foundered in a gale and the crew had to be rescued by the lifeboat.
A larger lightship replaced it but was hit by an Atlantic liner. The next one was much larger but the French mail packet Le Nord hit her at On board the lightship were both the crew and the relief crew, 16, all of whom lost their lives. In the early hours of 10 May , the 2,ton steamer Brator hit another lightship and the Dover lifeboat went to the rescue.
Continental Water Station Dover Express In November , Dover Harbour Board presented a Bill to Parliament to complete and equip the Commercial harbour and make improvements to the old harbour. Part of the proposals was that of a jetty 1,foot long, starting from land reclaimed between South Pier and Admiralty Pier.
Called a Water Station, the roofing was to extend from one pier to the other and it housed four berths. This would enable, according to the proposal, passengers to embark and disembark. It was also envisaged that nearby, adjacent to Admiralty Pier a large floating dock was to be erected. Although land reclamation had already started, neither project came to anything. Within the Bill was a request, by the railway companies, asking for the right to lay crane lines along Admiralty pier in order improve the handling of passenger luggage.
This was sanctioned and DHB engineer, Arthur Thomas Walmisley , designed two electric cranes for the purpose.
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