Dover Castle

Dover Castle is a twelfth-century castle located exactly where the shortest route from Great Britain to the continent runs. The castle hill was of strategic importance already in the Iron Age. The Romans built a lighthouse here (it still exists today), the Saxons left behind the church of St Mary in Castro, and William the Conqueror fortified the hill. Currently, Dover Castle serves as a museum, whose main attractions are the tunnels stretching under the castle and the monumental exhibition "The Great Tower", presenting interior reconstructions from the time of Henry II.

The castle owes its present form to Henry II and his sons, during whose rule most of the fortress's buildings were built. At the order of Henry, the Great Tower was built, which gave its name to the reconstruction of medieval interiors. To create the exhibition, craftsmen of various specialties (carpenters, tailors, gunsmiths, blacksmiths) were ordered by hand making over a thousand exhibits - all items were made using materials and techniques available in the Middle Ages.

The great attraction of Dover Castle is the opportunity to visit the tunnels carved underneath at a depth of 15 m. They were hollowed out during the modernization of the fortress at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in accordance with the concept of general William Twiss, who arranged a military garrison in them. In this way, the first underground bunkers in Great Britain were created. They were used during World War II, including as a hospital and command center for evacuation from Dunkirk. After the war, it was planned to locate the government's nuclear shelter in secret tunnels.