Dover Castle

I spent the Royal Wedding and the various Easter and May bank holidays before and after it revising for my tax exam. About the exam itself I am now hopeful rather than confident, but since then I’ve generally been trying to relax. Not too hard, it has to be said! The single biggest excitement of last week was Thursday’s deadline for the P14 and P35s. In the event, the overwhelming bulk of them had been filed by the night before, and I spent Wednesday evening celebrating with friends at a German beer-cellar-style pub near Chancery Lane.

On Saturday, I finally had my first real outing since I started this blog. It was a day-trip to Dover Castle, where I don’t actually remember ever having been before. I feel now that I’ve spent my entire life overlooking it, given that it’s a vast, sprawling edifice both spatially and diachronically, with a root in practically every age of British history from the Romans to the Saxons to the Middle-Ages to Napoleon and Hitler. It’s also the spiritual home of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, which again is rather more interesting historically than you’d think. Indeed of all the regiments that were involved in the Mahdi Army’s little intifada in al-Amarah in 2004, they arguably acquitted themselves least dishonourably, at one point chalking up more frequent contacts than any British Army unit had seen at any time since Korea, and eventually walking away with the last VC to date to have been awarded to a living soldier – Pte Beharry.

In truth my interest in Dover Castle was originally piqued last year, when I’d read about English Heritage’s no-expense-spared restoration project on the medieval keep. The Male still has a report on the result, with piccies, here, and Channel 4’s Baldrick even did a Time Team Special about it – which is special in that it’s just Baldrick doing it, and not the actual team, so it’s actually just about watchable. It’s still available on Channel 4’s 4oD site here.

UPDATE: In response to Naturgesetz's question about the PWRR, it's a new, amalgamated regiment (founded 1992, I think), though it draws on the history and traditions of its predecessors. I have a nasty suspicion it was dedicated to Princess Diana simply because she was popular at the time. (How long before we have the Duke of Cambridge's Own Marine Corps? One wonders.)

The PWRR's official website is here.