CHAPTER IV.THE TOWER AT DOVER.TThesummit of the lofty down at Dover, now crowned by the famous castle, with its Norman keep and towers, was used as a military post from a very remote antiquity. There can be little doubt that the Britons here kept watch and ward: that it was the site of a Roman stronghold, we know from indisputable evidence. A circular entrenchment of Roman work is still extant, and so too are the remains of the Roman lighthouse, whose steady blaze lighted the imperial galleys as they hovered about the port, or guided the British oyster-boats returning from their market at Boulogne.With the history of the stronghold, however, we have nothing to do. It is the pharos which attracts our steps, and induces us to ascend the steep acclivity. A recent antiquary is of opinion that there weretwolights; one on the eastern, and the other on the western edge of the hill. The ruins of the latter are so shapeless and indistinct that no description of them could interest the reader, or enable him to picture to his “mind’s eye” the form and structureof the ancient edifice. Of the former enough remains to assist our imagination very materially.THE TOWER AT DOVER.It is still, says Mr. Puckle,[11]a massive shell: the inner face of its walls vertical and squared, the outside with a tendency to a conical form, which was probably at one time much more distinct, allowing for the quantities of external masonry and facing which by degrees must have fallen or been hewn away. The basement only is of Roman work; the octagon chamber above having beenadded in the reign of Henry VIII. The dimensions are about fourteen feet square.The following description we borrow from Mr. Puckle’s learned monogram:—Except fragments here and there, he says, such as might have been picked up along the shore, the materials used in the pharos are few and uniform throughout; each having its own peculiar character, quite distinct from any supposed similar materials of subsequent date.“1.Tufa: A substance freely used by the Romans wherever obtainable, and always considered to mark their work as certainly as if dated and recorded in some historical document. Quantities of it may still be dug in parts of the valley of Dover, by the river. It was squared up, and used in tolerably regular courses of blocks; those inside showing a fair and even facing, hard, and little friable either by age or weather.“2.The concrete, or mortar: This is of two kinds, found at two levels of the lower mass of the tower. A small portion has been laid in a pale, tawny-coloured mortar, mixed in the proportion of four parts of sharp grit to one of lime. The greater part, however, has been carried up with the pink or salmon-coloured mortar, peculiar to Roman work, and mixed in the proportion of one part of lime to four of more or less finely-pounded Roman brick. It is nothing like so hard as the concrete found (for instance) lining the Roman baths discovered under the west end of the nave of St. Mary’s parish-church; but it is too peculiar a material not to be recognized wherever it appears, identifying its Roman make.“3.The red tile-brick: This, again, is always esteemed a very distinctive element in materials of Roman building; but it requires some attention to distinguish justly between the genuine Roman production and subsequent imitations of the same thing. Without digressing into the habits of a Roman brick-yard, it may suffice just to refer to what is described in well-known ancient authorities, as the careful process observed in the making of Roman tile-brick. A very pure and smooth clay was selected, and so treated as to expel as much as possible all gritty and non-homogeneous ingredients. Reduced to something like the fineness and consistency of dough, it underwent a treatment not very different from that of the dough itself; being laboriously wrought and tempered by hand or otherwise, like bread being kneaded in its trough; it was then shaped off in flat blocks of the various sizes employed. The sizes vary considerably as found in different places; but those commonly seen along the Kentish coast in bonding-courses, or the construction of arches, are something over a foot square, by about two inches in thickness. They are generally more or less deeply scored on the under face, either in a rude pattern, or simply with straight or wavy lines, making their hold on hard mortar very tenacious; though these are not unfailing marks of Roman brick.”Such are the materials of which the Roman pharos was constructed; materials identical with those which compose the Tour d’Ordre at Boulogne. When it was first disused as a lighthouse, it is impossible, to say; but as its elevation must have constantly enveloped it in mists, and rendered its fires useless, we should opine that it was not employed after the Conquest. In course of time it was devoted to military purposes, its lower chamber being convertedinto a guard-room; and of late years it has been appropriated as a government store-house. Lights are now established on the piers of Dover Harbour, and with those of the South Foreland on the English coast, and of Cape Grisnez and Boulogne on the French coast, amply suffice for the due illumination of the Straits.It is much to be desired that every care should be taken for the preservation from further injury of so interesting a relic of Roman times as the pharos at Dover.
T
Thesummit of the lofty down at Dover, now crowned by the famous castle, with its Norman keep and towers, was used as a military post from a very remote antiquity. There can be little doubt that the Britons here kept watch and ward: that it was the site of a Roman stronghold, we know from indisputable evidence. A circular entrenchment of Roman work is still extant, and so too are the remains of the Roman lighthouse, whose steady blaze lighted the imperial galleys as they hovered about the port, or guided the British oyster-boats returning from their market at Boulogne.
With the history of the stronghold, however, we have nothing to do. It is the pharos which attracts our steps, and induces us to ascend the steep acclivity. A recent antiquary is of opinion that there weretwolights; one on the eastern, and the other on the western edge of the hill. The ruins of the latter are so shapeless and indistinct that no description of them could interest the reader, or enable him to picture to his “mind’s eye” the form and structureof the ancient edifice. Of the former enough remains to assist our imagination very materially.
THE TOWER AT DOVER.
THE TOWER AT DOVER.
It is still, says Mr. Puckle,[11]a massive shell: the inner face of its walls vertical and squared, the outside with a tendency to a conical form, which was probably at one time much more distinct, allowing for the quantities of external masonry and facing which by degrees must have fallen or been hewn away. The basement only is of Roman work; the octagon chamber above having beenadded in the reign of Henry VIII. The dimensions are about fourteen feet square.
The following description we borrow from Mr. Puckle’s learned monogram:—
Except fragments here and there, he says, such as might have been picked up along the shore, the materials used in the pharos are few and uniform throughout; each having its own peculiar character, quite distinct from any supposed similar materials of subsequent date.
“1.Tufa: A substance freely used by the Romans wherever obtainable, and always considered to mark their work as certainly as if dated and recorded in some historical document. Quantities of it may still be dug in parts of the valley of Dover, by the river. It was squared up, and used in tolerably regular courses of blocks; those inside showing a fair and even facing, hard, and little friable either by age or weather.
“2.The concrete, or mortar: This is of two kinds, found at two levels of the lower mass of the tower. A small portion has been laid in a pale, tawny-coloured mortar, mixed in the proportion of four parts of sharp grit to one of lime. The greater part, however, has been carried up with the pink or salmon-coloured mortar, peculiar to Roman work, and mixed in the proportion of one part of lime to four of more or less finely-pounded Roman brick. It is nothing like so hard as the concrete found (for instance) lining the Roman baths discovered under the west end of the nave of St. Mary’s parish-church; but it is too peculiar a material not to be recognized wherever it appears, identifying its Roman make.
“3.The red tile-brick: This, again, is always esteemed a very distinctive element in materials of Roman building; but it requires some attention to distinguish justly between the genuine Roman production and subsequent imitations of the same thing. Without digressing into the habits of a Roman brick-yard, it may suffice just to refer to what is described in well-known ancient authorities, as the careful process observed in the making of Roman tile-brick. A very pure and smooth clay was selected, and so treated as to expel as much as possible all gritty and non-homogeneous ingredients. Reduced to something like the fineness and consistency of dough, it underwent a treatment not very different from that of the dough itself; being laboriously wrought and tempered by hand or otherwise, like bread being kneaded in its trough; it was then shaped off in flat blocks of the various sizes employed. The sizes vary considerably as found in different places; but those commonly seen along the Kentish coast in bonding-courses, or the construction of arches, are something over a foot square, by about two inches in thickness. They are generally more or less deeply scored on the under face, either in a rude pattern, or simply with straight or wavy lines, making their hold on hard mortar very tenacious; though these are not unfailing marks of Roman brick.”
Such are the materials of which the Roman pharos was constructed; materials identical with those which compose the Tour d’Ordre at Boulogne. When it was first disused as a lighthouse, it is impossible, to say; but as its elevation must have constantly enveloped it in mists, and rendered its fires useless, we should opine that it was not employed after the Conquest. In course of time it was devoted to military purposes, its lower chamber being convertedinto a guard-room; and of late years it has been appropriated as a government store-house. Lights are now established on the piers of Dover Harbour, and with those of the South Foreland on the English coast, and of Cape Grisnez and Boulogne on the French coast, amply suffice for the due illumination of the Straits.
It is much to be desired that every care should be taken for the preservation from further injury of so interesting a relic of Roman times as the pharos at Dover.