Connaught Park, Dover

In 1883 an opportunity was taken by Dover Borough Council to lease an area of land below Dover Castle from the War Department. Formerly part of Dover Castle Farm, the hillside was to become a new amenity area for the town.





Connaught Park was born. A tree was planted to commemorate the opening by the Duchess of Connaught, and it still stands alongside the lake to this day, albeit a but larger !



"Connaught Park. This tree was planted by R.H. Duchess of Connaught on the opening of the park on 14th July 1883. Richard Dickeson Mayor"


Also alongside the lake is a fountain, a gift from E.F. Astley MD in 1883.

Aycliffe Cottages, Old Folkestone Road, Dover

The below postcard is likely to come from the 1920's and is simple entitled, "Aycliffe, Dover". At first I expected them to have been demolished as part of the A20 road project in the 1990's, but after enquiries on Dover Forum, it turned out they still existed !

Driving along Old Folkestone Road it was evident that the housing estate had sprung up during the past decades below the hills of the Western Heights. Research shows that in the 1930's they were called Aycliffe Cottage, numbers 1-8, on Archcliffe Road (Archcliffe Fort being a few hundred metres away). In the background can be seen one of moats of the Western Heights defences, below which can been seen the King Lear public house further down the road.

Today, the houses have been expanded and updated, but the core is more or less unaltered with the original porches. Outside the mud track has given way to the tarmac and cars. Sometime between 1939 and 1956 the road was renamed Old Folkestone Road a continuation of the road that lead toward Folkestone. In 1939 the residents of the cottages were as below, with the 1956 occupiers in brackets:-

1 - Roland Nix (as 1939)
2 - George Rogers (as 1939)
3 - Neville Wissenden (as 1939)
4 - Robert Haves (Henry Morris)
5 - Cyril Cloke (William Lazorek)
6 - William Lee (Thomas Britt)
7 - George Chesterton (William Englefield)
8 - William Gibbs (as 1939)