History Forum / General / British History / June 2007

In the early part of the 19th Century two brothers, Stephen and Rogers
Court of Snargate Street, Dover, built a folly in the shape of a
miniature castle on the cliffs below the Western Heights. Very, very
few local people know of the building and even less have visited it.
The following contains a link to some of the first photos [1] of the
folly to be published on the internet.

For much of its history the miniature castle has been neglected and
its ruins are now hidden behind trees and other undergrowth which
cover this part of the cliff-face. Access to the site is 'difficult'.

A Dover Museum webpage on 'Court's the Wine Merchants' [2] states:

"As well as leasing the shop and premises [on Snargate Street] from
Dover Harbour Board, the Courts' leased 2 plots of land behind, from
Thomas Rutley and Thomas Papillon. On this land Stephen and Rogers
built terracing for vines, tea gardens, 2 summerhouses, and dug an
extensive network of vaults into the cliffs behind, with plastered and
painted walls and chalk carvings. The terracing up the cliffs was laid
out as gardens, growing the different varieties of grapes that the
wines they sold were made from, and also other exotic fruit such as
figs and dates. A summerhouse was built at the top of the terracing
and further along the cliff-face they built a folly in the shape of
Dover Castle silhouetted against the sky. These became tourist
attractions and customers could taste-test products sitting on the
terracing and have tours of the vaults."

A video slideshow, titled "Dover's 'Other Castle': The Court's Folly",
contains nearly 80 photos of the folly and its immediate surroundings.
It's available on both Google [3] and YouTube [4] with YouTube giving
the better picture.

I'll be adding subtitles soon (the maggots in the underground cistern
speak for themselves - just be thankful you can't see them moving) and
will replace the slideshow with a 'proper' video in the near future.

The slideshow is pretty basic (my first attempt), I spent ages adding
video effects only to find neither Google or YouTube like .wmv files -
or my version of them, anyway.

If you can't be bothered with the video, then 'static' photos of the
video can be seen at the first reference below.

John Latter / Jorolat

[1] Images of the Court's Folly/Miniature Castle
http://www.panoramio.com/user/250345/tags/Folly

[2] Court's The Wine Merchants
http://www.dover.gov.uk/museum/resource/articles/courts.asp

[3] Google Video Link
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6226422589816503125

[4] YouTube Video Link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F8coK81Gfw

The 'Images of Dover' website:
http://www.panoramio.com/user/250345