Buried Reserve and Pillbox, former Swingate Chain Home Radar Station

Swingate Radar Station is built on a prominent site above the cliffs about 2km to the north-east of Dover town, centred on grid reference TR 33680 43077. The site is large (approximately 21ha) and consists of a transmitter site, receiver site, and ancillary structures and features. The transmitter and receiver sites are separately listed.

BURIED RESERVE (buried reserves at TR 33587 43323, TR 33575 43213; tower bases at TR 33595 43313, TR 33594 43217) The underground buried reserve receiver and transmitter chambers have been capped by the MoD for safety reasons but survive intact below ground. They are brick built chambers, one to house a transmitter and one to house a receiver. Buried reserves had access stairs at one end and an escape exit from the main operating room at the other end. They also housed a room containing air conditioning plant, a WC and a rest room for the operatives. Access from the staircase to the operations room was protected by a gas lock. Above ground the buried reserves appear as rectangular concrete pads. One such, for the southern buried reserve, has evidence of sliding rails presumably to allow the original entrance hatch to slide to one side to allow access. Each buried reserve had an associated tower (originally 120ft/36.5m high), the bases of which, in the form of four concrete feet for each tower, also survive. These are square in plan (c2m2) and retain a projecting steel fixing beam in the centre of each pad. The tower for the northern buried reserve is to its south-east, and that for the southern buried reserve is to its east.

PILLBOX (TR 33514 43275) This is a pillbox of irregular hexagonal plan built of Stretcher bond yellow brick and reinforced concrete. On its roof is a broadly circular Light Anti-Aircraft Gun position, also in yellow brick. The entrance and embrasures have all been bricked up although their concrete lintels remain visible. The radar station is understood to have had a least one other pillbox for its defence but this no longer survives.