(Click this Dover Ferry Port and Eastern Docks text link to see the largest size)
The Eastern Docks and Ferry Port (1) occupy the bottom two-thirds of the photo with the actual cross-channel car and freight terminals out-of-shot to the left (as is the Eastern Arm pier that once bounded the Camber).
Various roads, some with light trails, surround the darkened square office block just below the centre of the photo: The Fan, North Exit Road, North Return Road, Dock Exit Road (etc.)
Above and to the right of the office block is the multi-storey car park atop the Booking Hall (Arrivals Hall, Reception Hall).
Official websites of companies operating cross-channel ferries are at P&O Ferries, Seafrance (under administration as of November 16th, 2011), and DFDS Seaways (Norfolk Line, Norfolkline). Photos of their ships appear, or will appear, under the P&O Ferries, Seafrance, and DFDS Seaways category labels (see all ferry images).
Above the Booking Hall, the Jubilee Way A2 Bypass sweeps down from a low-point in the White Cliffs of Dover (dimly visible down the right-hand edge) called Broadlees Bottom and turns back on itself over the Ferry Port before 'touching down' at a roundabout near the docks entrance where it is joined by the A20 dual-carraigeway.
The A20 runs parallel to the seafront after entering the town from behind Shakespeare Cliff and meets the roundabout below Athol Terrace after passing the houses of East Cliff (Marine Parade).
Charles Lightoller lived at 8 East Cliff after joining the Royal Navy's Dover Patrol (2) in 1916. He was the second mate and senior surviving officer of the 1912 RMS Titanic iceberg disaster.
In Lightoller's time during World War I, the Eastern Docks was "H.M. Dockyard, East Cliff" (3) and used for the dismantling of ships. In 1920 the Stanlee Shipbreaking & Salvage Co. Ltd. took over as commercial ship breakers and the following year they broke-up the battleship, HMS St Vincent, a veteran of the Battle of Jutland:
HMS St. Vincent was the lead ship of the St. Vincent-class battleships of the British Royal Navy. Visually, they were very difficult to distinguish from the Bellerophon-class, the major innovation in the St Vincent-class being the adoption of longer 50 calibre main armament, increased from the 45 calibre fitted to previous classes.
HMS St. Vincent was commissioned on 3 May 1910 as 2nd flagship of 1st Division Home Fleet at Portsmouth. She was commanded by Capt. Douglas R. L. Nicholson and was flagship of Rear-Admiral Richard H. Peirse, M.V.O., Home Fleet, at the Coronation Spithead Review of George V (5) on 24 June 1911:
Photo from "Official Programme of the Coronation Review" dated Spithead, June 24th 1911
In April 1914, HMS St. Vincent became flagship of the Second-in-Command, 1st Battle Squadron Home Fleet, which she remained until November 1915, when she became a private ship. She was in the 5th Division of the battlefleet (Grand Fleet) at the Battle of Jutland (German: Skagerrakschlacht), 20th in the line of battle, and engaged a German battleship believed to have been of the Konig-class (König-class).
The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark, during which HMS St. Vincent fired 98 x 12in rounds and received no damage.
Later in June 1916, HMS St. Vincent was transferred to the 4th Battle Squadron. In March 1919, she was reduced to reserve and became a gunnery training ship, which she remained until placed on the Disposal list in March 1921. She was sold for scrap and arrived at the Stanlee Shipbreaking & Salvage Co. Ltd, Dover, in 1921.
Ship's details
Name: Saint Vincent
Ordered: 1907
Laid down: 30 December 1907
Launched: 10 September 1908
Commissioned: 3 May 1910
Decommissioned: March 1921
Fate: Sold for scrap, 1 December 1921
Class and type: St. Vincent class
Type: Dreadnought battleship
Displacement: 19,488 tons
Length: 536 ft (163 m)
Beam: 84 ft (26 m)
Draught: 28 ft 11 in (9 m)
Propulsion: 4 shaft Parsons turbines; 24,500 shp (18,270 kW)
Speed: 21 knots (39 km/h)
Range: 4,690 nautical miles (8,690 km) at 10 knots (19 km/h) (coal only)
Complement: 756
Armament:
10 × BL 12-inch (304.8 mm) /50 cal MK XI guns (5×2)
20 × BL 4-inch (101.6 mm) Mk VII guns (20×1)
4 × 3 pounder guns (4×1)
3 × 18 inch torpedo tubes
The Western Docks:
The Admiralty Pier and Lord Warden House, previously the Lord Warden Hotel and World War II shore station, HMS Wasp:
The Prince of Wales Pier and Clock Tower:
The beach and seafront of Dover Bay (the Outer Harbour, ex-Admiralty Harbour), including the Victorian (or Georgian) architecture of Waterloo Crescent:
The masts of boats and yachts moored in the Tidal Harbour and Wellington Dock, location of the uniquely-designed Fairbairn Crane:
The Western Heights, location of a hidden Napoleonic and Victorian "Forgotten Fortress", and the even more secret Court's Folly:
(1) For passenger information and contact details for travelling to and from the Port, and facilities of the Ferry Terminal, download the Dover Ferry Port Passenger Guide, a pdf file from Dover Harbour Board (official website link) whose offices of DHB are located in Harbour House (part of Waterloo Crescent).
(2) The Dover Patrol was a Royal Navy command of the First World War, notable for its involvement in the Zeebrugge Raid on 22 April 1918. The Dover Patrol formed a discrete unit of the Royal Navy based at Dover and Dunkirk for the duration of the First World War. Its primary task was to prevent enemy German shipping—chiefly submarines—from entering the English Channel en route to the Atlantic Ocean, thereby obliging the German Navy to travel via the much longer route around Scotland which was itself covered by the Northern Patrol.
(3) From a Dover Museum webpage: the Shipbreakers Yard, Eastern Docks (Stanlee Ltd., A.O. Hill Ltd., British Industries Ltd., Dover Industries Ltd.)
(4) From HMS St. Vincent (1908)
(5) George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War (1914–1918) until his death in 1936.
(6) Spithead is an area of the Solent and a roadstead off Gilkicker Point in Hampshire, England. It is protected from all winds, except those from the southeast. It receives its name from the Spit, a sandbank stretching south from the Hampshire shore for 5 km (3.1 miles); and it is 22.5 km (14.0 miles) long by about 6.5 km (4.0 miles) in average breadth.
The Fleet Review is a British tradition that usually takes place at Spithead, where the monarch reviews the massed Royal Navy (Royal Navy website).
In 1797 there was a mutiny (the Spithead mutiny) in the Royal Navy fleet at anchor at Spithead.
Spithead has been strongly defended since 1864 by fortifications complementing those of Portsmouth and contemporary with Dover's Western Heights fortress and Fort Burgoyne.
The main photo first appeared at:
Night Panorama of the Ferry Port and Eastern Docks of Dover Harbour
Cross-channel ferry photos include:
The MS Pride of Dover berthed at the Admiralty Pier in April 2010 during the transport crisis following the Eyjafjallajokull volcano eruptions in Iceland.Not yet uploaded:
Space City and the Jubilee Way at Night, Dover Harbour
The Seafrance Berlioz
See all ferry photos.
More Dover Panorama, Navy, Night, Royal Navy, and History photos.
Clickable thumbnails of all harbour-related photos on the main Panoramio Images of Dover website are available on this blog at the Port of Dover Page (also linked to below the blog title).
The Panoramio photos are each accompanied by a Google Earth satellite map. However, the images are smaller than those on the Images of Dover Blog and the captions are less well formatted.
John Latter / Jorolat
Dover Blog: The Psychology of a Small Town
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