"Dover Castle Defense" Dover Things to Do Tip by Ash59
Dover Things to Do: 154 reviews and 222 photos
Dover Castle has withstood many attacks, ranging from a 6 month long land siege by the French in 1216 and air attacks during the WW2. The reason that it took all that was thown at it was because of its construction.
To start off with, the besiegers of 1216 had to get over a Moat built in Saxon times. Then they had to batter down the outer curtain wall, which had been fortified with mounds of earth which absorbed anything thrown at it. if they got through that (they never did -see the thickness of the wall in the picture), there was a killing ground between the curtain wall and the inner wall of the keep to get across.
During the Napoleonic wars, tunnels were dug down into the cliff to protect both men and ammunition from cannon fire. This proved to be so effective that further wartime tunnels were dug during the WW2 for a command center to be run from the Castle, which was fully protected from the bombing runs coming over from Europe.