Printed and Published at the Dover Express Works. 1916.

TO BE FORMATTED

ANNALS OF DOVER.
SECTION TWO.
THE PORT OF DOVER
II. THE EASTERN HARBOUR.

It was from the Eastern Harbour that the ships of the
Dover Passage sailed forth, organised by i fellowship of
Dover mariners before and after the Norman Conquest,
under the control of the Dover Corporation which was the
sole local authority in the port, as well as the Town, from
a very early period.

Down to the end of the Plantagenet days the harbour
seems to have entailed very little expenditure on the Corpora-
tion, for the small ships used in those times both for the
Passage and for the Cinque Ports Navy were built on the
shore, and, when necessary for safety, were hauled up on
the beach. That primitive method might have been con-
tinued much later, without resort to the expense of harbour
works, if the sea, which had been receding since the Saxon
time, had not begun to regain the land, which had been
left dry and had been included in the town of Dover. That
inset of the sea began to wear away the land in the direction
of the Market Place, where there were newly erected dwell-
ings, and, to prevent them from being undermined, the
Corporation, assisted by the Lieutenant of the Castle, built
a retaining wall from near the top of Snargate Street to
near the west side of Eastl)rook. This work was subse-
quently called the '' Old Wyke," the construction and
maintenance of which was paid for out of the profits of the
Passage and out of fines which the Lord Warden empowered
the Court of Lode Manage to inflict on the pilots and ship-
owners of the Passage for breaches of regulations. When
this Wyke was completed, and a level quay made behind it,
Dover, for the first time, had a fair and commodious
promenade where the people might take pleasure by the
seaside, and which, also, was used for embarking and landing
passengers and merchandise. An attempt was then made by
the Corporation to levy wharfage dues on the townspeople,
and a great tumult was raised by the people refusing to pay.
There was complaint made during the minority of Henry VL,
and in the second vear of his reign the " Good " Duke
Humphrey, who was both Lord Warden and the Protector of



84 ANNALS OF DOTER

the realm, in the Khig's name granted to the people of Dover
a Charter giving free wharfage to their ships for ever, by
reason of which the ships of Dover Burgesses still have free
access to the quays. The building of the VVyke had the
effect of making an inset of the sea upon the shore below
St. James's Church, and creating a little co;'e on the west
side of the Eastern mouth of the Dour, On tne margin of
this cove, in the year 1440, were the shipbuilding yards;
and Henry VI., granted a Charter to encourage those ship-
builders, .so that the ships used on the Dover Passage should
be so built as to be " sure, strong, of good and true material
as well in wood as in all sorts of ironwork.' Those ship-
building yards flourished about three centuries, and the
Eastern Harbour served its purpose until the early part of
the Sixteenth Century, when the mariners made a more
spacious harbour at Archcliff Point.



THE PORT OF DOYER 85