Printed and Published at the Dover Express Works. 1916.

TO BE FORMATTED

ANNALS OF DOVER.
SECTION TWO.
THE PORT OF DOVER
IX. A PERIOD OF SMALL IMPROVEMENTS.

 It does not seem clear why Lord Aylmer in'^ited Captain
Perry to report on the harbour. Some historians have said
it was because he was the Lord Warden, but he never held
that position. He was a Member of Parliament for Dover,
but he had been raised to the Peerage before he asked
Capt. Perry to make his report. Lord Aylmer's only other
connection with Dover Harbour was that he was the Ranger
of Greenwich Park. That Park is a part of the Manor of
Earl Greenwich, which was annexed to the Crown in the
reign of Henry Vlll. ; and, James I., when he, by charter,
granted to the Commissioners of Dover Harbour, the Harbour
lands, they were, somewhat curiously, granted " as of our
Manor of East Greenwich, in free and common socage, by
fealty only, not in capite, nor by any manner of Knight ser-
vice, without any rent and without account to us." Probably
it was by virtue of this peculiar method of conveyance that
Lord Aylmer, as Ranger of Greenwich Park, was entitled to
satisfy himself that the Commissioners of Dover Harbour were
taking the right steps to preserve the estate which James I.,
had granted to them. There is less difficulty in finding the
reason why Lord Aylmer selected Capt. John Perry to dis-
charge the duty. He appears to have been an expert in sea
and river defences, his reports on Daggenham Breach (on the
Thames) the Port of Dover and the Port of Dublin afford
ample evidence of his sagacity. In his survey he found that
when the wind blew hard from the South and South-West it
caused a drift of shingle which so choked up the mouth of
the harbour that no ships could enter. He found on enquiry
that that stoppage had not occurred so often as had been
reported, yet the apprehension of it deterred shipmasters
from putting in to Dover when in doubt as to its condition.
He found that on the sill of the basin there were but ten feet
of water, and he thought that might, with great advantage,
be deepened. As to the remedy for keeping out the shingle
he proposed to carry the South Pier i 50 or 200 feet further
out to sea remarking " I beliexe that the harbour will thereby
be freed from being choked up any more for ever." He



I to ANNALS OF DOVER

also proposed the construction of groins, eastward and west-
ward, to ward off the shingle, and more effectual sluicing
arrangements to clear out the shingle if by chance it should
tind its way between the pier heads. When this report
reached Lord Aylmer he was ill and dying, less than two years
later it was left amongst his papers. Subsequently Capt.
Perry asked the second Lord Aylmer to return it to him, and
it was submitted to the Harbour Commissioners, l)Ut they
never attempted to carry out any })art of the new works
that he had recommended.

In 1723 Dover Harbour lost two thirds of the Passage
Tolls which went to the Port of Rye, and by means of the
remaining third and their own revenue they employed their
regular staff of workmen in clearing out many thousands of
tons of mud out of the floating Ijasin and the Pent so as to
provide more back-water for sluicing ; and they made a
gateway out of the basin into the Pent to admit vessels to
the Upper Water. This work was done under the direction
of Mr. James Hammond Jun., whose father, James Ham-
mond Sen., filled the office of Clerk of the Cheques of Dover
Harbour and appeared to be occupying the positions of
treasurer, engineer and harbour master. Young James
Hammond, who occupied no official position at all, except
that of assistant to his father, seems to have carried out very
valuable work in clearing out thousands of tons of mud, and
building the Pent gateway; and at the same time he conceived
a geimine lo\e for Dover Harbour and Dover generally,
putting on record many facts concerning the Port, the Town,
the Castle and the Churches, thnjwing light on many Dover
affairs, which, but for the manuscript which he left behind,
would otherwise ha\e l)een ol)scure. The work directed by
James Hammond, Jnr., was carried out between the years
1727 and 1732. The mud from the basin was, by young
Hammond's contrivance of a temporary turn-water, carried
out to sea by the current, but the mud had to be taken out
of the Pent by hand, a good deal of it being carted by the
farmers to the neighbouring lands for manure and part of it
mixed with shingle was placed on the sea front shingle to
make .solid ground. The removal of the mud made room for
many thousands of tons of l)ack water, and the gateway built
with stones and fitted with sluice and a drawbridge, gave
a shi|>way into the Pent without interfering with the public
thoroughfare along Union Street. At the same time the



THE PORT OF DOVER lit

Crosswall was faced with stones, 'it having many years
previously been built with timber, under the direction of Sir
Henry Sheers, by Master Carpenter Ockam. The whole of
of the works under James Hammond, Jnr., were completed 'n
1738 by the erection of a swingbridge over the Crosswall
gateway to make a short footway from Union Street to
Clarence Place.

Between 1740 and 1757 Cheeseman's Head was repaired
and the Castle Jetty built. The total outlay on these two
works and repairs up to May 1757 amounted to ^22,226
4s. 2d. The Commissioners were able to meet this extra
expenditure, in spite of the fact that Rye was taking two
thirds of the Passing Tolls, because their local revenue from
harbour dues and ground rents had increased and the increase
of the shipping trade had made one-third of the Passing
Tolls nearly as much as the whole had been in the reign of
Charles 11. The revenue further increased in 1756 owing
to one half of the Passing Tolls being allotted to Dover.



ANNALS OF DOVER