50. Dover redoubt

So this was the last stop on our recent expedition to Dover. Walking around the outside moat is humbling, the sides of the moat are shear faces of brickwork, some 50 ft high. Once inside it seemed intimate, just the size of a ‘normal’ building. Then one corridor led to another, which led to another. Occasionally a long staircase would appear, and you would make your way up or down flights of 50-60 steps.




Throughout the fort were massive staircases, crafted entirely from brick and 54 stairs.


At the bases of most of the staircases were drawbridges above deep pits to stop advancing attackers. Despite being several hundred years old, the oak was still solid. They operated smoothly and their counterweights still swung gracefully into position either side.





Despite in being a fore boarding, underground military bastion, I thought this bit had quite a domestic feel to it:




The upper floors were constructed from 1” slate. In the pitch darkness occasionally my torch would pick out a human sized hole to the storey below. It really enforces the discipline of testing the floor with every step before trusting your full bodyweight to it.


Some of the ‘corridors’ blew me away. I know I can say this safely among other corridophiles that they blew me away! Some of them went on for hundreds of meters in one direction, then would turn a corner before continuing for another few hundred yards!



There is some footage of the corridors in one of my videos “Dereliction Addiction 4”