XVI. BUILDING THE ADMIRALTY PIER.
The building of the Admiralty Pier, which was intended, when commenced, to form part of the entire enclosure of the Bay was preceded by three enquiries, a Royal Commission in 1840, a Committee of the House of Commons in 1844, and Admiral Sir Byam Martin's Commission in 1845, which recommended that a harbour should be constructed in Dover Bay with an area of 520 acres at an estimated cost of ;,^2, 500,000. The works were commenced at Cheeseman's Head, the point where a projecting arm would give most protection to the Bay ; and, as the ardour of Parliament cooled down when about one quarter of the entire work was completed, it was very fortunate that the first operations were begun on that side, for that noble pier as a separate work has been of enormous public advantage for half a century. Eight different reports and plans v\'ere sent in by eminent engineers, and the plan of Mr. James Walker (then the Dover Harbour Engineer) was finally approved. The preparatory work was commenced in November 1847, but the actual commencement of the building on the bed of the sea was on the 3rd April, 1848, without any public ceremony.
The first portion of 800 feet, starting from Cheesman's Head on the western side of the Bay, was estimated to cost _;^245,ooo. It extended almost at right angles from the shore, facing the most exposed quarter from the south-west, and was therefore the most difficult part of the works. Fair progress was made in the first two years, and at the beginning of 1850 the foundations had been carried 650 feet from the shore. At that time a storm did great damage to the staging but not much harm to the permanent work. The rate of progress throughout was comparatively slow. The greatest advances were made in the years 1849 and 1861. The average yearly advance, from 1847 until its completion in 1 87 1 amounted to 91 feet a year.
The work was carried out under thrift contracts; the first for 800 feet, taken in 1847; the secoml fo** 1,000 feet, in 1S54; and the final one of 300 feet in 1867. The total sum paid to the contractors was ;^679,368 working out at ^^323 los. per lineal foot for its entire length of 2,100 feet as completed in 1871. After that date there was a large expenditure for constructing a fort at the end of the Pier, and a projecting apron to secure the base of the structure from being undermined by the current. The fort was armed with two 81 -ton guns fixed in a revolving turret, and at large expense a magazine was built under water, the total cost being ^150,000.
Since the building of the original Harbour of Refuge was suspended on the completion Oi work already described, there have been ten schemes for enclosing the \\hole Bay or for smaller works, their scope being briefly as follows: —
1. — Fowler and Abernethy's plan 1869 for an enclosed harbour west of the Admiralty Pier.
2. — Brough, Murray and Hall's scheme 1870, for a smaller enclosure of the Bay.
3. — Vignoles and Murray's plan, 1870, for a harbour west of the Admiralty Pier.
4. — Fowler, Abernethy and Wilson's plans, 1872, for an enclosure of the entire bay to Cornhill.
5. — Sir John Hawkshaw's plan 1872, for a deep water harbour of a moderate size in the bay.
6. — Sir Andrew Clark's scheme 1873 for an enclosure of the Bay extending a little beyond the Castle.
7. — Sir John Hawkshaw's plan, 1875, larger than that of 1872.
8. — A scheme for a harbour to enclose the whole Bay, to be carried out by convict labour, for which a Convict Prison was built on the cliff of the Castle, but nothing further done.
9. — A plan for enclosing the Bay by Mr. Rowland Rees.
10. — The plan of the late Sir John Coode, which has since been carried out in massive walls that enclose the whole Bay.