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Fan Bay Deep Shelter at The White Cliffs of Dover
Completed in just 100 days, Fan Bay Deep Shelter provided shell- and bomb-resistant accommodation for the soldiers serving on the nearby gun battery in the Second World War. After a mammoth volunteer rediscovery and reconstruction effort, visiting the shelter is now a highlight of many trips to The White Cliffs of Dover.
Visiting the deep shelter
Vehicle Access
There is no vehicle access to Fan Bay Deep Shelter. Please park in our main car park at White Cliffs and walk along the coast path towards South Foreland Lighthouse. You can use additional parking facility, when open, which is closer. Full details of our opening times are on our home page.
Your visit
You can experience the shelter just as the soldiers did over 80 years ago. Your visit to Fan Bay Deep Shelter will be a unique and inspiring experience. You’ll be inside the tunnels for around 45 minutes, and you will be wearing a protective helmet with a head torch, which will provide lighting for your journey.
View the full Accessibility Guide for Fan Bay Deep Shelter on AccessAble.co.uk.
Steps into the past
After your safety briefing, you descend the 125 steps into the shelter. Your knowledgeable and friendly guide will show you wartime depictions of the scenes within the tunnels and artefacts and graffiti left by the soldiers and those who followed. You can look at the vain attempt at dismantling the shelter by the scrapman and admire the fossils in the chalk. Halfway through your tour you will emerge into daylight to see the two sound mirrors – relics of an earlier conflict. You'll complete your tour by going back underground, through the longest tunnel in the complex, before you climb the stairs and head back into daylight once more.
Views of the deep shelter
Some of the features you'll be able to see when you take a guided tour of Fan Bay Deep Shelter.
A guided tour descending into Fan Bay Deep Shelter
The staircase of 125 steps in three flights is the original concrete and steel structure that the soldiers would have used to enter the shelter. You can almost sense the relief that they would have felt as they rushed to take cover from shells from the German guns on the French coast, just 20 miles (32km) away, or the enemy aircraft with bombs and machine guns, directly overhead.
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Helpful advice
The history of the Fan Bay battery
From Churchill's speech, to the construction of the gun battery and the deep shelter. From their use during the Second World War and subsequent abandonment. From the demolition and covering over in the 1970s to the rediscovery and opening and the subsequent unearthing of the plotting room and the gun emplacements. Find out lots more about the history of this almost forgotten relic of wartime and how we rescued this priceless artefact on our special page 'A brief history of Fan Bay Battery'.
The Fan Bay sound mirrors
With Louis Bleriot’s epic flight across the channel in 1909, the Dover Strait no longer offered our island nation security from attack. During the First World War, Britain came under aerial bombardment for the first time and new ways of protecting ourselves were needed.
The first sound mirror experiments were conducted in 1915 using ‘dishes’ cut directly into chalk at a quarry site near Maidstone, Kent. These early attempts soon gave way to larger, more complex concrete structures, faced with smooth cement. Sound mirrors became relatively common around the south and east coasts of England coast from Hampshire in the south, to County Durham in the northeast. The first Fan Bay mirror was built in 1916/17, the other around 1920.
How sound mirrors work
Sound mirrors used a curved surface to concentrate the sounds generated by the aircraft’s engine, reflecting these into a funnel-shaped collector to which was connected a stethoscope. This increased the range at which the aircraft could be heard. A specially trained operator would listen intently for the distant noise and warn of a potential air raid, giving an estimate of height and bearing. Many lives were reportedly saved in the Dover and Folkestone area in 1917 by the earlier sound mirror.
Over a decade after the first mirror was constructed, the collector would be replaced by a sensitive microphone and the stethoscope by an electronic amplifier and headphones. The mirrors were superseded by radar in the late 1930s.
Visiting the sound mirrors
Your guided tour of Fan Bay Deep Shelter includes a visit to the two sound mirrors at Fan Bay. You can even try out the sound mirror effect for yourself on our specially designed platform.
Captain Strange and Fan Bay
Visiting Fan Bay has become an even more exciting experience as a wartime leader of the battery has been brought to life by one of our dedicated volunteers.
Arthur Lionel Strange was born in Wolverhampton in 1920. He joined the army at 18 years old and was commissioned as a second Lieutenant in 1941. Strange took command of Fan Bay Battery in August 1944 and was promoted to Captain, Temporary Major. He remained in command at Fan Bay until early 1945.
Unfortunately, like the deep shelter, Captain Strange became somewhat forgotten and unknown. Fan Bay’s amazing re-discoveries has led to a quest for knowledge of the site and its key role in the outcome of the Second World War.
Meet ‘Captain Strange’
On selected days from March to October, Gordon Wise, one of our volunteers who led the excavation of Fan Bay Deep Shelter, helps to bring Fan Bay to life. Sporting an accurate replica uniform, Gordon enjoys sharing his wide knowledge of the history of the area with our visitors.
'Captain Strange' will be on duty on the following dates:
Saturday 28 June (Engagement Week - At Fan Bay or Wanstone Battery - please check website)
Sunday 29 June (Engagement Week - At Fan Bay or Wanstone Battery - please check website)
Saturday 26 July - At Fan Bay
Sunday 27 July - At Fan Bay
Saturday 23 August - At Fan Bay
Sunday 24 August - At Fan Bay
Saturday 13 September (Heritage Open Day - At Fan Bay or Wanstone Battery - please check website)
Sunday 14 September (Heritage Open Day - At Fan Bay or Wanstone Battery - please check website)
Saturday 27 September - At Fan Bay
Sunday 28 September - At Fan Bay
Saturday 25 October - At Fan Bay
Sunday 26 October - At Fan Bay
(end of season)
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