Qualla: Admiralty Pier Turret

Admiralty Pier Turret: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Alan Moore, CC BY-SA 3.0. Two guns weighing 80 tons each, the biggest installed anywhere in the United Kingdom, sit silently inside a revolving armoured turret on the Dover breakwater. They have sat there since 1882. They were declared obsolete in 1902 - twenty years of service - and neither of them was ever fired at an enemy. The Admiralty Pier Turret, locally known as the Dover Turret, is one of the more peculiar pieces of Victorian military engineering still in place: 895 tons of wrought iron and steel revolving on 32 rollers, run by four steam engines, designed to penetrate 20 inches of iron at 1,000 yards range, made obsolete almost immediately by the rapid rise of breech-loading naval guns and faster ships. The guns are still in there.

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Image: David Alan Moore | CC BY-SA 3.0

Admiralty Pier Turret: A Fort at the End of the Pier

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adrian Rothery, CC BY-SA 2.0. Dover's Admiralty Pier was already a major piece of Victorian engineering when, in 1872, work began on a small fort at its far end. The engineer in charge, Edward Druce, reported in January 1872 that diving bells had begun preparing the underwater foundations; in January 1874 he ...

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Image: Adrian Rothery | CC BY-SA 2.0

Admiralty Pier Turret: Thames Ironworks Builds the Turret

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Alan Moore, CC BY-SA 3.0. The turret was built by the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company at Blackwall, the same yard that had constructed HMS Warrior twenty years earlier. The structure was a wrought-iron frame clad with three layers of seven-inch armour separated by two-inch layers of iron and woo...

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Image: David Alan Moore | CC BY-SA 3.0

Admiralty Pier Turret: Moving Forty Tons of Iron Across a Harbour

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Alan Moore, CC BY-SA 3.0. Getting two 80-ton guns onto the breakwater was, by 1881 standards, a major engineering puzzle. Rail was considered first - then dismissed because the special carriage required would have no other use afterwards. Barging the guns out was settled on instead, using special sheers a...

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Image: David Alan Moore | CC BY-SA 3.0

Admiralty Pier Turret: Obsolete Almost Immediately

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Alan Moore, CC BY-SA 3.0. The handover to the Royal Artillery in 1886 came after a final four-round demonstration firing. The Pier Turret was, on paper, formidable - though it had a problem. The magazine was too exposed, and by 1887 a consultative committee was already proposing a new shell store below th...

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Image: David Alan Moore | CC BY-SA 3.0

Admiralty Pier Turret: Caretaker's Family, Storm, Silence

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Alan Moore, CC BY-SA 3.0. Between the two World Wars, the Admiralty Pier Fort was turned into a home for the battery caretaker, who lived there with his wife and family - a domestic life conducted inside a coastal fortification with two 80-ton guns dozing in their turret next door. The Pier Turret Battery...

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Image: David Alan Moore | CC BY-SA 3.0