The Formation of Castle Street.

In April 1827 there appeared in the then Dover newspaper The Cinque Ports Herald. An advertisement which announced to builders and others that fourteen acres of very eligible building land would be let on lease the said land being known by the name of Tinkers Close and situate on the rise of the Castle four minutes walk from the Marine Parade and Baths and commanding views of the sea, harbour and neighbouring country.

We select the forgoing old advertisements as a text for a few remarks because it carries us back to the commencements of a series of improvements that had to do with the development of Dover.

This Tinkers Close was the land that is now bounded by Harold Passage, Ashen Tree Lane Alfred Place and Laureston place. It is not necessary to describe the way in which the enterprising builder responded to this advertisement because anyone who likes to visit the spot can see for himself that there must have been a great deal more ingenuity in the mind of the writer of the advertisement than in the subsequent designer of the “rural residences and dwelling suited for the purpose of a genteel and fashionable watering place.”

It requires quite an effort of the imagination to picture what the site above mentioned and its surroundings looked like.

St. James Church of course, was non-existent and there was not a single house except perhaps a solitary lodge or cottage on the sites of Maison Dieu Road, Pencester Road and Park Street.

The old Castle standing in solitary grandeur looked down upon the fields where the Dauphin of France carried on his siege of the Castle in King John’s reign and where the Royalists in later days in vein beleaguered the forces of the Commonwealth. No material change had taken place in this district from those primitive times until the enterprising land agent placed Tinkers Close in the Market as a building estate.

Let us sketch in rapid panoramic style what followed.

If there were an original tinkers-hole adjoining Harold passage and on the upper side of this hole, one widow “Hopper” a sort of amazon had a rude dwelling house from which she was not easily ejected. Looking from this building estate towards the Market Place we observe that there is no Castle Street. Between Dee Stone lane to Dolphin Lane there is a wide marshy area intersected by the Dour and occupied by Humphrey Humphrey’s tannery, Stringers barn and Gardeners cottage. The way to the town is down St. James Street but it is a very narrow way, the residence of Mr. H–? one side and the White Horse public house on the other dispute the passage making it so narrow that a travelling caravan cannot pass.

The idea of forming Castle Street was originated about the year 1829 by Mr. William Prescott who subsequently emigrated to Australia. The entrance to the street from the Market Place, was then occupied by the Antwerp Stables, and these buildings threatened for some time to bar the way. These stables together with the hotel had been bought by Mr. Huntley for a sum of £2,900 and he refused for a long time to allow the new street to run through his premises.

But some six years later the Paving Commissioners obtained an Act of Parliament to improve Bench Street and under the same powers the entrance of Castle Street was bought at the enormous price of £3,100. When this obstacle was removed Castle Street grew apace under the joint efforts of Mr. J Finnis, Mr. Henry Elve, Mr. Edward Knocker and Mr. William Prescott. It is a sad pity that when they were making Castle Street they did not improve the tannery off the face of the earth and then the property would have doubled in value. The top of Castle Street was linked on “the new way to the castle” which had been formed by the War Department some thirty years before,

After Castle Street came Russell Street and Eastbrook Place and then in more recent years the rural lane at the back of the Maison Dieu Fields was widened and the charming thoroughfare with its ample residence known as Maison Dieu Road sprang up, the handsome mansions of the Victoria Park of a later date. This piece of land was formally called Strangers Field. It was then an open sort of place and the sentry box of the outer castle guard was in a wilder situation than it now is. It was when the locality was in that lonesome state that one night a solitary sentry marched his weary rounds when in the silence of the night he heard footsteps approaching “who goes there” bawled out the sentry – no reply. The challenge was repeated but although the footsteps approached closer there was no answer whereupon the brave defender levelled his musket and fired. A groan was the only response and nothing was seen or heard of the intruder until dawn discovered the dead body of a donkey who had strayed from the adjacent field and had suffered the penalty of trespassing on dangerous ground. What a change on the old hillside since that donkey’s fatal night.

Victoria Park the masterpiece of Dover’s domestic architecture looks down upon a wide extent of still more modern buildings.

The old hill has also been pierced to a depth of 230 feet by wells which supply the purest water to the town at the rate of fifty thousand gallons per hour of a later date has been the laying of the beautiful grounds of Castle Mount where a noble collegiate mansion has been erected by Mr. Robert Chignell. Adjoining this is Dover’s latest attraction the Connaught Park and skirting it is the Dover Castle Estate where may be some of the most approved samples of suburban residences.

Happily we have wandered from the early to the latest improvements of Dover the latter proving that the spirit of enterprise which existed in Dover years ago has now become extinct.