Printed and Published at the Dover Express Works. 1916.

TO BE FORMATTED

ANNALS OF DOVER.
SECTION FIVE.
THE HISTORY OF THE CORPORATION.

XII. DOVER OF TO-DAY.

From the time when the great sanitary improvements
were made by establishing the Water Works and carrying
out the arterial sewerage system in the middle of the
Nineteenth Century, very little was done to alter the general
character of Dover until towards the close of the Victorian
Period. Old Dover has been described as a town of narrow
and crooked streets and lanes. Much of that was greatly
altered in the last two decades of the Nineteenth Centur)';
more particularly the main thoroughfares from the Market
Square to the Maison Dieu, and to the Priory Station were
greatly improved. Many new houses, adapted to the wants
of all classes of the inhabitants were built, most of them
comprised in areas known as the Dover Castle Estate,
Clarendon, Winchelsea, Maxton, Barton, Buckland, and
Crabble; and, in addition to covering ground to a great
extent new, large additions were made to Tower Hamlets and
a much over-due effort was made to improve the dwellings
in the Pier area.

A decided social advantage was the introduction of
electricity, which began to be generated and used in Dover
for light and power in 1894; and the widening of the streets
having made it possible to introduce street tramways, the
electricity was used as the motive power, providing a great
facility for locomotion, which a far extending town like Dover
greatly needs. At a cost of ^,^28,000 the tramways were
made and equipped in 1897, and in 1905 they were extended
to River. Later the Electricity Undertaking, which was
first taken in hand by a Company, was transferred to the
Corporation, and the Town Council controls both of those
commercial enterprises.

The Corporation have entered largely into the provision
of Pleasure and Recreation Grounds. The earliest effort
was their obtaining a lease from the War Department of the
Northfall Meadow, a pleasant glade, north east of the Castle,
formerly a place for tilting matches, called Knights'
Bottom. It has in later vears been used as place
for a semi-rural stroll, and for golf. The Connaught



272 ANNALS OF DOVER

Park, also leased from the War Department, a part
of Dover Castle Farm, was laid out and planted by
public subscriptions in 1883. It has charming walks and
extensive views of the sea and the western hills ; and by
passing through it from end to end the pedestrian has an
unrivalled walk from the upper end of Charlton, right away
to the Castle entrance at the Constable's Tower. The
Danes Recreation Ground on the side of Frith Road, on the
way to Guston, is a fine level plateau, opened in 1891,
dedicated to cricket and football, and occasionally used for
fetes. Near the sea, between the Marine Parade and
Waterloo Crescent, are the Granville Gardens, with a band-
stand, around which visitors and towns people gather to
listen and promenade to the music of Militan- Bands, which
are provided during the summer at considerable cost by the
Corporation. Up the valley, near the extremity of the town,
alongside the tramway route, is the Dover Athletic Ground,
at Grabble, where the matches of the Kent County Cricket
Week are annually held, and all the year round cricket or
football. The ground is a fine oval, in charming sur-
roundings, and on the margin of the oval is a track for cycle
races. On this Athletic Ground the Dover Corporation
spend about ;£3oo a year for its upkeep, in addition to
capital charges. The Corporation also have pleasant
gardens on the South side of the Maison Dieu, the main
feature of which is a fine bowling green.

The Corporation Baths are a fourfold arrangement.
The most important for summer visitors are the bathing
arrangements on the shore from bathing boxes. On the side of
the Promenade at East Cliff are ladies' and gentlemen's
Swimming Baths, as well as private baths. Near the Maison
Dieu there are hot and rold baths, more centrally .situated
for the townspeople, and in the same locality is a ver)' well
arranged Turkish Bath. These bathing conveniences are a
great advantage to the town, both for residents and visitors,
and well worth the five or six hundred pounds that the
Corporation has to provide to balance the working expen.ses.

Land hunger does not trouble the inhabitants of Dover
much, there being a good deal of available garden ground
around the fringe of the building estates, nevertheless the
Corporation has invested between two or three thousand
pounds in the purchase of allotment ground, which is situated



THE HISTORY OF THE CORPORATION 2/3

at Buckland, near working class houses that have only small
gardens.

For the purposes of education the Corporation have in
recent years had to spend much more than in former times,
for until compulsion came by Act of Parliament, the
Corporation's educational expenditure was very small. There
was a Museum established about 80 years ago, which, when
it commenced, was a centre of mutual help in higher
education, but after it came entirely into the control of the
Corporation its educational value declined. There has been
a long agitation in Dover in favour of the establishment of
a Public Library, and although it has to be recorded that
Dover of to-day does not possess such a centre of enlighten-
ment, public opinion appears to be growing in favour of
spending public money in a moderate way, not only for
mental recreation but for liberally furnishing the minds of
citizens with information on public affairs to enable them to
rightly exercise the duties of Citizenship.



274 Annals of doveii