A Day in Dover walking the BlueBird Heritage Trail:
The famous song “There’ll be Bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover” was popular in WWII as solders dreamed of seeing the cliffs as they returned home. I diverge to note there probably have never been bluebirds in Dover as they are not indigenous to this area. After another hearty English Breakfast we went to walk the BlueBird Heritage Trail.
The trail starts at the Dover War Memorial. At the base of the statue is a grappling hook incorporated into the memorial. This grappling hook was used as part of a heroic raid in April of 1918. The objective of the raid was the port of Zeebruggeand, the hook was used to block the passage of German U-Boats.
The trail winds through the streets of Dover and I will note some of the points I found interesting. Should you desire to explore further, Google BlueBird Heritage Trail.
One comes upon St. Edmund’s Chapel. This is believed to be the smallest church in England still in use. It was to have been demolished in 1965, but was purchased and restored to it’s present condition.
A couple of things worth a visit are the Dover Museum which houses the Bronze Age Boat. This is said to be the oldest sea going boat. The other place to visit is the Roman Painted House. This is a town house dating back to 200AD. The in-floor heating system is rather interesting.
The trail leads to the waterfront, here, looking back on the cliffs, you can see Mote’s Bullwark. It was there the Dunkirk evacuation was masterminded. The balcony is where Churchill looked towards occupied France.
The trail continues along the waterfront where there are many memorials.
There is a bust of Captain Matthew Webb, the first to swim the English Channel in 1875. This took him 21 hours 45 minutes and his distance was increased from the straight line of 34 km to 64km as a storm blew in. He later died trying to swim across the rapids below Niagara Falls in 1883.
A monument to Operation Fuller, where part of the German Fleet sailed through the Channel as it moved to the Baltic Sea. The operation was not a success as a think fog concealed most of the movement.
A monument to the Merchant Navy and their WWII involvement. There is a statue of Charles Stewart Rolls, the first to fly over the Channel and return nonstop on June 2, 1910. He later died in an aircraft crash and was the first Englishman killed in a flying accident.
If you have about three hours, this is an interesting walk steeped in the history of this area.
No comments:
Post a Comment