Original steel engraving from 1875
Condition: good - see scan!
Shipping is of course quick and packaged to be kink-proof!
If you have any questions, please send an email - Questions? - please send an email.
Please also note my other offers!
Here are more motifs "Great Britain" in the shop!
I also offer other very beautiful wood engravings, steel engravings and lithographs - please use the SHOP search. Shipping costs only apply once for multiple items purchased!
Documentation:
Dover Castle is a castle near Dover, England, it has been described as the "Key to England" for its historic defensive importance. On the highest point of the castle there are two buildings that were there before the fortress was built: the ruins of a Roman lighthouse and an originally Saxon church of St Mary in Castro. The enclosing earth wall was built in the 13th century. Century built over an older, the archaeologists in the middle of the 11. 1st century and which could therefore be the location of the original earth wall fortress built by William the Conqueror. After the Battle of Hastings in October 1066, William the Conqueror marched his forces towards Westminster Abbey to be crowned. He made a wide arc over Romney, Dover, Canterbury, Surrey and Berkshire. Dover has been a key member of the Confederation since the Cinque Ports were founded in 1048 and may have initially attracted William's attention. William of Poitiers writes: “Then he marched to Dover, which he had been told was impregnable and held by a strong army. The English, terrified at his approach, did not trust either their bulwarks or the numbers of their soldiers […] While the inhabitants prepared to surrender unconditionally, the Normans, greedy for booty, set the castle on fire , much of which was soon ablaze […] [William then paid for the repairs and] after taking possession of the castle, the duke spent eight days building new fortifications.” These could be repairs and improvements to an already existing Anglo-Saxon may have been a fortress or city, although archeological evidence suggests that a new moth-shaped castle was built. During the reign of Henry II. the castle gradually began to take on its present form. The master builder was Maurice the Engineer, who managed to build the castle in record time from 1168 to 1178. The inner and outer courtyards and the large rectangular keep, one of the last of this form ever built, date from this period. During the First Barons' War, the barons rebelling against King John offered the French Prince Louis VIII the English crown. Louis landed in south-east England with a French army in May 1216. On the 25th. July turned Louis attacked Dover Castle, having already conquered much of south-east England, but the garrison under the royal Justiciar Hubert de Burgh was prepared. The first siege began on April 19. July, with Ludwig taking the heights north of the castle. His men successfully undermined the watchtower and tried to bring down the castle gate, but the garrison managed to drive back the invaders and barricade the breach in the wall with logs. After three months of siege, Ludwig called on the 14. October signed a truce and returned to London soon after. After the Armistice, the English garrison at Dover had repeatedly interfered with Louis's communications with France, and so Louis returned to Dover to begin a second siege. The French camp in front of Dover Castle was burned by William of Cassingham before the fleet arrived with reinforcements, and so Louis was forced to land at Sandwich and march to Dover where, on the 12th, May 1217 the second siege began. However, this claimed so many of his soldiers that his allies suffered several heavy defeats in the meantime. In September 1217 the war was finally over. After the first siege, the vulnerable north gate, where a breach had been made, was converted into an underground, projecting defense complex, and new gates were incorporated into the outer ring walls to the west (Fitzwilliam's Gate) and to the east (Constable's Gate). By the Tudor period, with the advent of gunpowder, the ramparts were no longer adequate. They were conquered by Henry VIII. reinforced, who personally inspected the construction work, and supplemented with a moat. During the English Civil War, Dover Castle was initially held by the King's allies, but was taken by ruse without a shot being fired in 1642, so the castle was not vandalized and is now in better condition than most other castles. End of the 18th century At the end of the 19th century, during the Napoleonic Wars, massive renovations took place. William Twiss, the commanding engineer of southern England, completed the remodeling of the outer bulwarks of Dover Castle, adding the Horseshoe, the Hudson's, the East Arrow and the East Demi Bastion for additional gun emplacements, as part of his commission to strengthen the towns' defences at the east side and constructed Constable's Bastion to better protect the west side as well. Twiss also strengthened the ledge at the north end of the castle, where he placed a raised gun platform. By covering the keep's roof and replacing it with a massive brick vault, he was able to position heavy artillery on it. Twiss also built the Canon's Gateway to connect the castle's defenses with those of the city. After Dover became a garrison town, barracks and quarters and storerooms had to be created for the additional troops and their equipment. Twiss and the Royal Engineers dug tunnels 15 meters below the cliffs and the first soldiers were billeted here in 1803. At the height of the Napoleonic Wars, the tunnels housed more than 2000 men and remain the only underground barracks ever built in Britain. With the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the tunnels were partially rebuilt and used by the Coast Guard to fight against smuggling. As early as 1826, however, the headquarters were relocated closer to the shore. The tunnels remained unused for more than a hundred years. With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the tunnels were first converted into an air raid shelter and later into a military command center and hospital. In May 1940, Admiral Bertram Ramsay directed the evacuation of French and British soldiers from Dunkirk from his command center in the tunnels. A military switchboard in the tunnels mockup In 1941 a military switchboard was installed to service the underground headquarters. The hatch cabinets were in constant use and required the construction of a new tunnel to house the batteries and chargers needed to keep them in working order. The Navy used the headquarters to allow direct communications with the ships and to direct rescue ships to recover downed pilots. Later, the tunnels would serve as protection for the regional government in the event of a nuclear attack. The plan was dropped for a variety of reasons, including the chalk cliffs not providing adequate radiation shielding and the tunnels being poorly preserved and uncomfortable. The designations of the tunnel levels are as follows: A - Annexe ("Annex"), B - Bastion, C - Casemate ("Casemate"), D - DUMPY ("Deep Underground Military Position Yellow") and E - Esplanade. Levels A and C are open to the public; access to B is no longer known, but research is ongoing; D and E are closed. In November 2000 a statue of Admiral Bertram Ramsay was erected outside the tunnels to honor his involvement in the Dunkirk evacuation and protection of Dover during World War II.
(Source: Wikipedia)