Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
Rather shocked to see this view this aftenoon... rather a shock !!
Been nice knowing you :)
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
Scotchie that will be one for your archives in years to come...that should make the newspapers for sure for the sheer novelty factor.
Guest 657- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 3,037
Great shot.
Guest 690- Registered: 10 Oct 2009
- Posts: 4,150
No respect for anything these days. Was there no action group which could have saved them for future generation`s to enjoy?
Tell them that I came, and no one answered.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
has the american contract run its course,or have they found better thecnoligy.
Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
I think they were Crown Communications and no longer MOD, but I cannot see any planning documentation (that I am sure they would need given their promenance on the skyline) so don't know what the plans are for them. I am hoping Paul Watkins might comment ?
They are historical dating from the 1940s and well known in images including this one:
Been nice knowing you :)
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
we certainly deserve to know what is happening here, they are an important part of the landscape.
i thought that in recent times, after the cold war ended, that they were mobile phone masts?
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
I have already said what i think is happing on the other post,but at times outside steelwork needs alot of upkeep.painting, welding,patch put on all over it,and that cost alot of funding,as awelder for well over 40years and working on steel work inside and outdoors i can tell you in the kind of weather we get up there the towers will need alot of work to keep them up or they will just fall to the ground and that is the danger.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
with respect victor that is not the point.
surely we should be told that they are coming down, not rely on someone driving past with a camera to tell us.
maybe they could rename the spot "brook house"!!
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
Well you are right about Brook House That was done very under hand. But we must wait amd see about the towers,if they are coming down it might have come up in planning and you have to go up the their offices now to find out about what planning is going on they do not print all of it in the papers any more, to cut back on cost,s. But you still have the right to see any planning going on in Dover,but you must aske to see them.
Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
All planning should be ok DDC website even if it doesn't go to press... I will contact DDC planning,
Been nice knowing you :)
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
I'm on the planning committee at DDC and haven't seen anything about this at all.
I can't believe this has happened - an iconic feature of Dover's skyline and history.
I'll email the Planning Department to see if they know anything.
Roger
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
I've now sent off an email to the senior planning officer at DDC along with Scotchies' first photo - I'll let you know his reply.
Roger
Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
Thank Roger, I also dropped a line to them yesterday so hopefully someone will know something
Been nice knowing you :)
I have looked on DDC website.
The masts do not seem to be listed (DDC website for listed buildings under "Guston") also as a member of Dover Society Planning Ctee I can certainly say that no planning request seen for the demolition.
If Paul Watkins (who is also Councillor for Guston) is reading this can he get demoltion stopped pending application etc.
I see from Pauls item 6 above there were four masts originally.
As I orinally put on my thread the masts are a iconic landmark and historically have importance for Dover.
The Dover Society will also make representation to DDC Planning
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
If they are taking them down it will not take long,I have a feeling it is only that one because it might be unsafe.
Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
Looked like the bottom half of that tower was down and being broken up this morning....
Been nice knowing you :)
Guest 673- Registered: 16 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,388
Rather disturbed that these masts can be pulled down without any consultation concerning their historical significance. They formed part of the world's first early warning system and were fundamental to our winning the Battle of Britain. I always thought that the memorial constructed at Capel le Ferne might have been better located at Swingate where the statue of the pilot would be beside the radar masts which made the victory possible. Will return to this subject later but the article below will give some background to the significance of the masts. It is one which I wrote for the Dover Express some years ago:
DOVER AND THE DAWN OF RADAR
Known to Dovorians as the "Three Sisters," the giant steel masts at Swingate behind Dover Castle are a lasting monument to a time when they were a vital link in the fledgling radar chain that enabled the RAF to win through to victory in the Battle of Britain. The blue skies over Dover in that simmering summer of 1940 were tormented with the writhing contrails of Messerschmitts, Heinkels, Junkers and Dorniers engaged in a desperate dance of death with the Spitfires and Hurricanes vectored onto them through the ceaseless vigil of the electronic eyes far below.
The story begins with a tiny bomb falling into the back garden of a rectory in Harold Street in Dover in 1914, the first bomb to be dropped on England. Aircraft development was rapid and by the end of the Great War London had been bombed on numerous occasions by Zeppelins and biplane bombers, causing immense panic and disruption amongst the civilian population. A labyrinthine defence in depth had been constructed around London, with observers all the way out to the coast reporting back on specially installed landlines to a central control room off Horseguard's Parade controlling concentric rings of anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, barrage balloons and fighter squadrons.
Between the wars, the belief was reinforced that "the bomber will always get through." The human eyeball and eardrum were insufficient to detect bombers penetrating at will anywhere along the entire coastline and shrouded in night or cloud. Impossible numbers of fighters would be needed to maintain standing patrols. Hitler had come to power and Germany was resurgent. In the Air Ministry in 1934, a scientist named A. P. Rowe read through the available literature and concluded that Britain was doomed to defeat if a war with Germany should ensue within the next ten years. He reported this to his superior, Henry Wimperis, who alerted the Secretary of State for Air and alarm bells rang throughout Whitehall.
Robert Watson-Watt at the Radio Research Laboratory was asked to investigate whether it would be possible to construct a death ray to bring down enemy bombers. Death rays were all the rage in the science fiction of the time and the Air Ministry had previously offered a reward for anybody who could develop a ray that could kill a sheep at a hundred yards. The sheep remained untroubled. Watson-Watt's assistant, Arnold Wilkins, quickly calculated that whilst a death ray was out of the question, it might be possible to detect aircraft using radio waves.
A legendary experiment was thereupon conducted in a field close to a powerful BBC shortwave transmitter at Daventry in 1935. A Heyford bomber trundled backwards and forwards and energy reflected from the bomber caused the trace on a cathode ray tube to rise and fall. The principle behind radar was proven and Watson-Watt was so excited that he was half way back to London before he remembered that he had taken his young nephew along for the ride and left him behind.
Development proceeded apace at a site established at Orfordness and nearby Bawdsey Manor. The bombing of Guernica by the Condor Legion of the Luftwaffe during the Spanish Civil War, allied to Hitler's growing demands, concentrated minds and ensured unlimited funds. Time was of the essence and a chain of radar stations, known as Chain Home (CH), was completed from the Isle of Wight to Scotland prior to the outbreak of war. Dedicated landlines fed the information back to Fighter Command HQ at Bentley Priory in Stanmore where it was sifted with other information in a Filter Room and fed to the plot in the adjacent Operations Room. From there it was disseminated to Group HQ's and Sector Operations Rooms. The latter controlled the fighter squadrons in their sectors by radiotelephone, monitoring their positions by a system known as Pipsqueak. Chain Home was fully operational just in time for the Battle of Britain and constituted the world's first early warning system.
The Germans had also secretly developed radar and suspected that the aerial masts sprouting up all along the coast of Britain might also be radar. In 1939 they sent an airship packed with receiving equipment to fly up the east coast of England and Scotland monitoring the transmissions. It was tracked by Chain Home all the way. The immense power and low frequency of the transmissions completely swamped their receivers and, in one of the great miscalculations of the war, they concluded that we did not have radar.
Swingate was one of the first two CH stations to be completed. Four 360 feet high steel transmitting masts with huge platforms at the top and half way down supported wire aerial arrays fed from a transmitter block. Four 240 feet high wooden receiving masts supported dipole aerials feeding a receiver block. Prodigious power at shortwave was radiated in pulses on a wide arc out to sea and reflected from all targets in the area. Direction finder bearings were taken of the echoes which were displayed as vertical spikes on a horizontal range scale on a cathode ray tube in the receiver hut. Operation was a very demanding and skilled task to which female personnel were found to be particularly suited. Range was well over a hundred miles and bomber formations were detected as they formed up over France prior to the short-range fighters climbing to join them. An associated Chain Home Low (CHL) station was erected at Fan Bay to provide low level cover.
Swingate suffered repeated bombing and shelling attacks throughout the war, culminating in a final two months frenzy of shelling before the cross-channel guns were overrun. Three transmitter masts survive, one having been dismantled post war and another dismantled and replaced. Today they are in use by the Royal Signals and commercial broadcasters. These masts drip with history and are a potent reminder of the dark days when The Few rose to meet the onslaught of the Nazi aerial armadas.
Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
Remember that article Ed, it was a goodun
Been nice knowing you :)
Terry Nunn
- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,316
I concede that there may be a problem with a steel structure rusting away after 70 years but I think that someone should have looked more closely at this. Currently, what was the middle tower is used for your FM radio and other services. The seaward one obviously has some sort of use (I'm not sure what the "pyramid" is at the bottom but possibly Ed may know what it is).
Surely they all rust at the same rate. If so, will we lose Radios 1 2 3 and 4? If two are to remain then why demolish the other one?
These are iconic structures, if you like, the "Angels Of The South", because that is indeed is what they were saving many lives.
Terry
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Been nice knowing you :)
Been nice knowing you :)
