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A cross-section diagram of the Admiralty Pier
Turret.
During the 1870s the Admiralty had been developing
a new naval gun with armour piercing capabilities, the design
of which was finally perfected in 1876. A Rifled Muzzle Loader
or R.M.L. it weighed 81 tons, was 26 feet 9 inches long and
fired a 1,700 pound shell just under 7 miles. Each gun cost
£10,000 and each round of ammunition over £26.
It was first regarded as purely a naval weapon, but in 1877
the Admiralty decided that something larger than the existing
guns was needed to protect Dover, and the idea of a turret
containing two of these weapons at the end of the Admiralty
Pier was born. The pierhead was modified, at a cost of
£60,000, to house the magazine with an engine room below
it and the turret above.
The turret, 37 feet in diameter and weighing,
with the guns in their mountings, 895 tons, cost £90,000.
The engine room in the heart of the pierhead and below the
high water mark, housed two steam engines to rotate the turret,
one to work the ammunition hoists, loading gear and to run
the guns in and out, one to operate a dynamo giving 33 volts
for lighting and a steam pump to provide water under pressure
for hosing out the guns between rounds.
The guns were brought from Woolwich to Dover
by ship and were installed in the turret using block and tackle.
The muscle power was provided by no less than 1,000 men of
the Dover garrison stretching the length of the pier.
In 1883 the guns were tested amid local fears
of damage to the cliffs and windows and roof tiles in the
town. Crowds gathered on the Sea Front to watch the effects
of the firing but the only damage was to the lighthouse at
the end of the Admiralty Pier where three small panes of glass
were broken. More tests were carried out early in 1886 and
the turret handed over on 21st April.
There is no record of the guns having ever
been fired again and in 1902 the Dover Turret was declared
obsolete. In 1898 it had been suggested that the turret guns
should be replaced with 9.2 inch breech loaders but this was
never done. The guns were run in for the last time greased
and depressed to the loading position and left. The steam
engines and ammunition hoists have been removed as has the
gear for running the guns in and out but the guns themselves
still remain inside the rusting turret.
The temporary crane is seen lifting the first
of the two guns in December 1881.
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