A Concrete Legacy: Bringing back a lost heritage of conflict on the White Cliffs of Dover

Jon Barker, National Trust
The White Cliffs of Dover, now owned and managed by the National Trust, are one of the most iconic pieces of landscape in Britain, if not the World. This was geography that played a key part in the great conflicts of the twentieth century, most notably during the Second World War. Much of the associated archaeology of conflicts was deliberately covered up or obliterated in the 1970s by local government ‘eyesore removal’ programmes. But, in recent years, the National Trust has undertaken a programme of work to reveal and uncover this vanished, but not forgotten, past. Through a combination of time-limited projects and ongoing commitment, the Trust has achieved impressive and long-lasting results. This paper will highlight these achievements and seek to demonstrate how follow-on projects and sustained effort can combine to generate a permanent legacy of enhancement of the historic environment on Britain’s former frontline.