Folkestone is a port town on the English Channel, in Kent, south-east England. The town lies on the southern edge of the North Downs at a valley between two cliffs. It was an important harbour and shipping port for most of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Folkestone & Hythe is a local government district in Kent, England, in the south-east of the county. Its council is based in the town of Folkestone. The authority was renamed from Shepway in April 2018, and therefore has the same name as the Folkestone and Hythe parliamentary constituency, although a somewhat narrower area is covered by the district.
The Western Heights of Dover are one of the most impressive fortifications in Britain. They comprise a series of forts, strong points and ditches, designed to protect the country from invasion. They were created in the 18th and 19th centuries to augment the existing defences and protect the key port of Dover from both seaward and landward attack; by the start of the 20th century Dover Western Heights was collectively reputed to be the 'strongest and most elaborate' fortification in the country. The Army finally withdrew from the Heights in 1956-61; they are now a local nature reserve.
Lydden Spout Battery is a World War II coastal defence battery built in 1941 west of Dover. Originally armed with three 6-inch Mark VII naval guns on Mark V mountings, later upgraded to Mark XXIV guns on the same mountings. Fan Bay Battery to the east of Dover is built to the same plan.
Wrights Hill Fortress is a counter bombardment coastal artillery battery in the Karori suburb of Wellington, New Zealand. It was built between 1942 and 1947 and is predominantly underground, with numerous tunnels linking the war shelters, gun emplacements, magazines, plotting rooms and engine room - which are, at some points, over 50 feet underground. The fort was intended to house three 9.2" Mk. XV guns, but only two guns were installed and the fort never saw action. After World War II was over, fort commanders fired both of the guns. The fall of the shot was observed in Cook Strait and these test firings were deemed a success. In 1960, somewhat ironically, both of the guns were sold to the Japanese as scrap metal, the very nation Wrights Hill Fortress was constructed to defend Wellington against. The design of the fort is similar to the Stony Batter and Whangaparaoa 9.2" Mk. XV batteries, near Auckland.
Martin Mill railway station serves the small village of Martin Mill in East Kent. The station and all trains serving it are operated by Southeastern. The booking office is open only on weekday mornings however a ticket machine on the Dover-bound platform caters for out-of-hours ticketing. For many years the ticket office acted as a Post Office for the local community.
South Foreland is a chalk headland on the Kent coast of southeast England. It presents a bold cliff to the sea, and commands views over the Strait of Dover. It is centred 3 miles (4.8 km) northeast of Dover and 15 miles south of North Foreland. It includes the closest point on the British mainland to the European continent at a distance of 20.6 miles (33.2 km).
Capel-le-Ferne is a village situated near Folkestone, Kent. Its name derives from the phrase "Chapel in the Ferns". It had a population in 2011 of 1,884. It is perched on top of the White Cliffs of Dover.
The Undercliff is the name of several areas of landslip on the south coast of England. They include ones on the Isle of Wight; on the Dorset-Devon border near Lyme Regis; on cliffs near Branscombe in East Devon; and at White Nothe, Dorset. All arose from slump of harder strata over softer clay, giving rise to irregular landscapes of peaks, gullies and slipped blocks, that have become densely vegetated due to their isolation and change of land use. The Kent coast at Folkestone and Sandgate also has similar undercliff areas.
A fire control tower is a structure located near the coastline, used to detect and locate enemy vessels offshore, direct fire upon them from coastal batteries, or adjust the aim of guns by spotting shell splashes. Fire control towers came into general use in coastal defence systems in the late 19th century, as rapid development significantly increased the range of both naval guns and coastal artillery. This made fire control more complex. These towers were used in a number of countries' coastal defence systems through 1945, much later in a few cases such as Sweden. The Atlantic Wall in German-occupied Europe during World War II included fire control towers.
The Dover Strait coastal guns were British and German long-range coastal artillery pieces, on the English Channel coasts of Kent, England and the Pas-de-Calais, occupied France. The Strait of Dover is the narrowest channel between England and continental Europe. During the Second World War, both sides used their guns to bombard shipping in the Channel as well as coastal towns and military installations.
Malabar Battery was a coastal defence battery built in 1943 during World War II at Malabar Headland, Malabar, New South Wales, Australia. The battery is also known as Boora Point Battery.
The pointe du Grand Gouin is a rocky promontory with vertical cliffs to the west of the inlet of Camaret-sur-Mer in France. It protects a port which, in Vauban's era, was vulnerable to possible landings. It is divided into the Grand Gouin and the Petit Gouin (mid-cliff).
Sandown Barrack Battery is a battery located in Sandown Bay close to Sandown on the Isle of Wight in England. It is one of the many Palmerston Forts built on the island to protect it in response to a perceived French invasion.
Culver Battery is a former coastal artillery battery on Culver Down, on the eastern side of the Isle of Wight, England. The fortification is one of several Palmerston Forts built on the island following concerns about the size and strength of the French Navy in the late 19th century. It was operational during the First and Second World Wars. The battery was closed in 1956.
East Cliff and Warren Country Park is in Folkestone, in Kent, England. This country park is formed of the East Cliffs of Folkestone, the sandy beaches of East Wear Bay and the land-slipped nature reserve land between the cliffs and the sea.
Batterie Lothringen was a World War II coastal artillery battery in Saint Brélade, Jersey, named after the SMS Lothringen, and constructed by Organisation Todt for the Wehrmacht during the Occupation of the Channel Islands. The first installations were completed in 1941, around the same time as the completion of the nearby Battery Moltke, in St. Ouen.
Battery Moltke or Batterie Moltke is an uncompleted World War II former coastal artillery battery in St Ouen in the north west of Jersey. It was constructed by Organisation Todt for the Wehrmacht during the Occupation of the Channel Islands.
The depression range finder (DRF) was a fire control device used to observe the target's range and bearing to calculate firing solutions when gun laying in coastal artillery. It was the main component of a vertical base rangefinding system. It was necessitated by the introduction of rifled artillery from the mid-19th century onwards, which had much greater ranges than the old smoothbore weapons and were consequently more difficult to aim accurately. The DRF was invented by Captain H.S.S. Watkin of the Royal Artillery in the 1870s and was adopted in 1881. It could provide both range and bearing information on a target. The device's inventor also developed a family of similar devices, among them the position finder, which used two telescopes as a horizontal base rangefinding system, around the same time; some of these were called electric position finders. Some position finders retained a depression range finding capability; some of these were called depression position finders. Watkin's family of devices were deployed in position finding cells, a type of fire control tower, often in configurations that allowed both horizontal base and vertical base rangefinding. Watkin's system included automatic electrical updating of range and bearing dials near the guns as the position finders were manipulated, and a system of remotely firing the guns electrically from the position finding cell. The improved system was trialled in 1885 and widely deployed in the 1890s. Functionally equivalent devices were developed for the United States Army Coast Artillery Corps and its predecessors, called depression position finders or azimuth instruments depending on function, adopted in 1896 and deployed widely beginning in the early 1900s as the Endicott program of modern coastal defences was built. These devices were also used by both countries to control submarine (underwater) minefields.
Folkestone Warren is a 316.3-hectare (782-acre) biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) which runs along the coast between Folkestone and Dover in Kent. It is a Nature Conservation Review site and it contains three Geological Conservation Review sites and part of a fourth. An area of 83.6 hectares is a Local Nature Reserve,
