Dover Castle

Dover Castle, long called the "Key to England," guards the shortest crossing to the Continent. The site holds an Iron Age hillfort, a surviving Roman lighthouse and an Anglo-Saxon church, while the mighty Great Tower was raised for Henry II in the 1180s. It withstood a French siege in 1216-17 and remained militarily important into the twentieth century, when its secret tunnels served as the command centre for the 1940 Dunkirk evacuation, Operation Dynamo.

With so many centuries of soldiers and sieges, the castle has gathered numerous ghost stories. Local tradition tells of a headless drummer boy on the battlements, and visitors and staff report figures in old dress, footsteps and voices in the wartime tunnels, and sudden cold in the keep.

The castle's documented military history is exceptional, and the underground tunnels in particular create a genuinely intense environment. The paranormal accounts are anecdotal, and the combination of vast age, confined spaces and dramatic history offers plenty of scope for the imagination.

Dover Castle is managed by English Heritage and open to the public with paid admission (free for members), including the Great Tower and the wartime tunnels; opening is seasonal and busy periods may require timed entry. The extensive, hilly site involves considerable walking.

Please follow staff directions, especially in the tunnels, and help care for this nationally important monument.