People of Dover

Website

People of Dover đź“Ť One district.
🗣️ Many voices.
đź“· Portraits and words from the people.
🫶 Arts Council England funded.

Pt 2/2We’ve got a fantastic group of volunteers. We have about 20 odd people turn up for each work day, people of all di...
20/07/2026

Pt 2/2
We’ve got a fantastic group of volunteers. We have about 20 odd people turn up for each work day, people of all different ages, backgrounds, abilities. We’re working in some really difficult conditions, but we’re doing a vital piece of work here. I really do need to give credit to the volunteers, because this is all about the people that turn up on a Sunday in whatever weather to work on this place for nothing.

We’ve restored this place back to something that it could never aspire to be without our help. If you look at other areas of the Western Heights, they’re almost apocalyptic in condition now, because they’re just left for people to vandalize. So we took this over 25 years ago, 2003 and we’ve made a real difference. We’ve now established ourselves to a point where we’ve got really good standing with English Heritage and Historic England. So, we’re given quite a bit of autonomy to work on this place.




Pt 1/2“My name’s Mick Orchard. I’m the treasurer of the Western Heights Preservation Society. I’ve lived up on the Weste...
20/07/2026

Pt 1/2
“My name’s Mick Orchard. I’m the treasurer of the Western Heights Preservation Society. I’ve lived up on the Western Heights since I was a boy. Moved away for a period, came back and I always used to explore these places as a child and loved them. And then when I moved back, I used to see work parties up on the ditches clearing. Eventually I came along and joined one. I absolutely loved it. It gives me a real sense of purpose. I love working on the place, and we look after the Drop Redoubt. We’re a charity and I actually consider it to be a real privilege to have keys to this place and to be able to look after it as this is a unique part of Dover’s Heritage.

I think for me a big value of this place is I’ve got Parkinson’s, which affects my movement and my ability to do things physically. So, this for me, is a real lifeline to doing normal day-to-day work. The biggest fight and the biggest defence against Parkinson’s progression is activity. So this gives me a real sense of purpose, because it’s really easy to get lost in the sort of finality of Parkinson’s inevitability of going downhill, and ending up in whatever state I end up.

So, psychologically, physically, this really helps me, and we’ve got such a good bunch of volunteers here. There’s real sense of family, so I really go away from here reassured and comfortable that I can be myself here. You’ll see when you interview me, I’m moving quite a bit when I’m interviewed. I get like that when I’m tired, or when I’m under stress, or it’s hot like this, but I can come here, I can be accepted by people, I can be myself, I can work the amount I can work, I can go away, you know. I’ve constantly got people coming to me, asking if you’re alright if you need anything, but for me this is linked back to a normal life, and the longer I can keep this going, the better.”




.
20/07/2026

.




“We are the Cinque Port Smugglers. Smuggling was a huge problem on the Kent and Sussex coasts during the 18th and 19th c...
20/07/2026

“We are the Cinque Port Smugglers. Smuggling was a huge problem on the Kent and Sussex coasts during the 18th and 19th century. Cinque ports were originally five ports from Hastings through to Sandwich, and the smugglers would be importing things such as tea, brandy, all things that had high excise on, silks, laces.

They would also be exporting things like precious metals, semi precious metals, tins, copper, wool. It’s quite a well-known fact that most of the French soldiers on the battlefield at Waterloo are actually wearing Romney Marsh wool uniforms. We portray those smugglers, but we’re trying to educate people and get the Hollywood out of it as well, so they actually tell the history of the smuggling rather than just the drama and the sensationalised history of it”

“In The Pirates of the Caribbean, there’s a song that Johnny Depp, otherwise known as Jack Sparrow, sings the line “and ...
20/07/2026

“In The Pirates of the Caribbean, there’s a song that Johnny Depp, otherwise known as Jack Sparrow, sings the line “and Really Bad Eggs”. Really bad eggs refers to all the gunpowder smells, so when you’re in battle, it’s the sulfur from the gunpowder that’s smelling and that’s what makes the really bad eggs smell.”

“I’m from Kingsland in Norfolk. We travel down here as a family. My daughter, my wife, and I, we travel down here purely...
19/07/2026

“I’m from Kingsland in Norfolk. We travel down here as a family. My daughter, my wife, and I, we travel down here purely to have the place open. The more volunteers we have, the more we can have open. Found out about it accidentally 23 years ago, and we’ve been visiting for the last 23 years, but volunteering for the last 8.

It’s the history of it, looking into the history, doing the background history research, what happened here, the actual regiments that were here. The graffiti, we’ve got some graffiti here of the people that were actually billeted here, so then we know who was here, we can look into service records, and then build a picture up with the regiment, their families.

We come down as a family unit. We work together as a team and we call the other volunteers a family. We’ve got to know them as a family, in a way, our sort of temporary family. And we can pass on what knowledge we have to each other and to the general public.”

“I don’t live in Dover anymore. My daughter and I lived in Dover in 2018 and we fell in love with Western Heights instan...
19/07/2026

“I don’t live in Dover anymore. My daughter and I lived in Dover in 2018 and we fell in love with Western Heights instantly because of the nature, and particularly for her it was invertebrates. So we’ve just kept coming back every year.

I ended up volunteering here just because this was a site that’s so rich in biodiversity, we have so many invertebrates here that you don’t see in other places. All the big hills and hilltop areas are left wild in Dover because they can’t do anything else with them and they’re teeming with life.

It’s an amazing place, if you like nature and history and my two passions are nature and history so I just can’t keep away really. I still keep an eye out on the bugs, and I work on the website for Western Heights Preservation Society. I do some admin website stuff, and I’m working on a document to sort of monitor the list of species that we have.”

“We’re on a fort overlooking the sea, but all the guns face inland, and that’s because at the time this was built in the...
19/07/2026

“We’re on a fort overlooking the sea, but all the guns face inland, and that’s because at the time this was built in the late 1770s to the early 1800s a cannon on here wouldn’t actually reach the sea or do any damage.

This place has cannons facing north to capture a landward invasion of men and horses coming in to capture the port because they need the deep water access to bring the wagon loads of baguettes and gunpowder.

So all the time that this fort and the rest of the forts, there is another mile and a half of forts going to the West of Dover, and there’s two more forts on the East of Dover, and they’re purely facing inland. It looks weird when you first come across it, but there’s a very good reason.”

Address

Dover

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when People of Dover posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category