Dover Cathedral

About

Dover Castle, overlooking the English Channel, was founded in the eleventh century and took its present shape under Henry II, who between 1179 and 1188 spent over 6,500 pounds on the great tower and the inner and outer baileys — an enormous sum when the crown's annual revenue was around 10,000 pounds. Within the grounds still stands a second-century Roman lighthouse, or pharos, an octagonal tower built of tufa, Kentish ragstone and red brick. The castle also played a part in twentieth-century history: in 1940 Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay directed Operation Dynamo, the Dunkirk evacuation, from headquarters in the tunnels beneath the castle. Now managed by English Heritage, it offers visitors the recreated medieval interiors of the Great Tower and tours of the secret wartime tunnels.