Headline for May 12 1999

On December 2 there was a public meeting held at English Heritage's new headquarters for the south-east region in Guildford.  This was an opportunity for any member of the public to come along and air their views regarding any heritage matter in the south-east.

Naturally, we went along with a prepared question which reads as follows:

ENGLISH HERITAGE PUBLIC MEETING -  02.12.99

I REPRESENT ‘WESTERN HEIGHTS TODAY’ ,

WHICH IS DOVER’S WESTERN HEIGHTS DEFENCES ON THE WWW.

IN RECENT YEARS ENGLISH HERITAGE HAVE SPENT A CONSIDERABLE

AMOUNT OF MONEY ON CONSERVING AND IMPROVING THE

EXTERNAL BRICKWORK OF THE DROP REDOUBT BUT I UNDERSTAND

THAT ALL WORK HAS NOW STOPPED DUE TO OTHER PROPERTIES IN

THE SOUTH-EAST REGION BEING IN GREATER NEED.

AS FAR AS I UNDERSTAND IT, ENGLISH HERITAGE HAS

ALWAYS BEEN INTENT ON OPENING UP THE REDOUBT ALONG WITH

THE NORTH CENTRE AND NORTH CENTRE DETACHED BASTIONS TO

THE GENERAL PUBLIC. ARE WE REALLY LIKELY TO SEE THIS HAPPENING

IN SAY, THE NEXT 20 YEARS OR IN THE SHADOW OF DOVER CASTLE IS

WESTERN HEIGHTS GOING TO END UP AS ANOTHER

**WIGMORE CASTLE ?

HOW MANY OF THE 300,000+ VISITORS TO DOVER CASTLE LAST YEAR

EVEN KNOW OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE WESTERN HEIGHTS DEFENCES,

WHICH THE ROYAL COMMISSION HAS STATED ARE

"OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE"?

This is the answer we got:

Bill Startin Acting Regional Director for South-East Region

If I may answer your second question first, you’ve raised something in my mind. I really haven’t got involved with that part of the world, but I’m not sure that we do make the most of the wonderful view you get of Western Heights from Dover Castle itself, the explanation of that, and that’s something I’d like to go back and look at, I think that’s very interesting…….on the first part of your question well, I have three answers, they’re money, money, money….and I just don’t know when we’ll be able to do all we want to do. It is a problem of course; we don’t have sufficient resources to do all the projects we’d like to do

Richard Berry Director of SE Region

It may help to give a national over view of the sort of money we spend on our projects across the whole of the country.  The bulk of that money which is somewhere around £15m this year and about £13m next year. I have to say that the bulk of that does come down here to the south-east infact but Dover Castle is always at the top of our list.  It’s like painting the forth bridge; once you start at one end you go around and start at the other again. It’s always very expensive and I’m afraid as Bill says, we just really haven’t got enough to do everything we’d like to do.

**Wigmore Castle is more or less a ruin.  It's been conserved or stabilised at considerable expense by English Heritage and has intentionally been left in a ruinous state.

Draw your own conclusions...