Jewel of the Seas — Dover; St. Mary’s Church and Dover Castle

There are actually two St. Mary’s Churches in Dover. One resides east of town, high up on a hill next to Dover Castle (St. Mary sub Castro — St. Mary in the Castle), and it’s an ancient Saxon structure dating back to at least AD 1000, and perhaps even before. That’s not the one I’m going to show you today. Today’s St. Mary’s Church (Church of St. Mary the Virgin) is the one you glimpsed in Monday’s article. This Anglican church is around 100 years younger (circa AD 1100), with an extensive restoration conducted in 18943-1844.

As for the stained glass. I assume these pieces were part of the restoration rather than older. At any rate, they are spectacular:

The church sports eight bells:

And these bells are located in… where else…? the bell tower:

I’ll be moving on to Dover Castle and the impressive fortifications there, but first a gallery of St. Mary’s before we do:

Now I’ll show you Dover Castle, which overlooks the city of Dover from the east. This is the view I gave you of it last Monday, as seen from Castle Street:

But today we’re going to take a much closer look:

This enormous complex of fortifications, tunnels, and other structures began life as a keep built for Henry II between the years AD 1179 to AD 1188.

The castle is by far the largest in all the U.K. It is at least 50% larger than even Windsor. You will spend hours walking around this place. Below you can see that other St. Mary in Castro (left background) and the ruins of a Roman lighthouse (pharos) which was later repurposed as a belltower for the church (right background):

The battlements surrounding the complex are certainly impressive:

We’ll really go wild looking over this enormous castle on Wednesday. Until then, here’s Peverell’s Gate:

Слава Україні! (Slava Ukraini!)