As a visitor assistant at English Heritage’s Dover Castle, Hatty Harley says no two days at work are ever the same. “It’s a nine-to-five day but not a nine-to-five job,” she says.
“Yesterday, I spent two hours on-site cleaning – I looked like a Ghostbuster with a backpack vacuum cleaner – after which I stood and talked to guests in the Great Tower. After that, I dressed up as a lady-in-waiting for a school visit of five-to-seven-year-olds, and then I met with the social media team before selling guidebooks in the ticket office.”
A self-confessed “history geek”, 35-year-old Harley has worked at the castle in Kent for more than two years, after visiting and falling in love with the place. Her job often involves spending extended periods of time at the castle by herself: “I love being here when no one else is as it’s so quiet. You get to see choughs with bright orange beaks, woodpeckers and foxes.”
While there are various ghost stories involving the castle, Harley tries not to think about them too much. “If someone tells me stories, I say: ‘I can’t hear that.’ Otherwise, if I heard something when I was here on my own, I’d panic … There are stories of a headless drummer boy, a ghost dog and a monk who walks through walls,” she says. However, much of the castle’s history is cooler than the legends, she adds.
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Graffiti on the walls points to the castle’s past as a prison
Dover Castle was commissioned by King Henry II in 1179 to defend the short stretch of sea between England and France and, in the 1200s, it was a castle under siege from rebel barons loyal to Prince Louis of France. During Tudor times, Henry VIII met the Holy Roman Emperor here for a six-week diplomatic visit and Anne of Cleves stayed on her way to marry Henry in 1539.
As well as royal visits, the castle has been used as a prison. “There is graffiti on the walls of the castle that dates from the 1100s right through to the 1950s. I love that it’s all someone saying the same thing: ‘I was here,’” says Harley.
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Tunnels under the castle were pivotal to war planning
It’s the castle’s role in more recent history that she finds the most impactful, however. “I’m a second world war nerd and I love being in the tunnels under the castle. It’s amazing to walk through where Dunkirk was actioned,” says Harley. “It’s also where the naval aspect of the D-day landings took place, and Operation Fortitude, the military deception part of D-day.”
Part of Harley’s role involves guided tours of the tunnels and helping run the cold-war-themed escape rooms, the Bunker. “Some of the tunnels have been turned into a nuclear bunker and this forms part of the story,” she says. “I dress up as a member of the civil defence from the 1960s and watch them work out the various puzzles to escape. It’s very funny.”
Harley particularly enjoys taking schoolchildren through the tunnels and around the castle, dressed as either a Women’s Royal Naval Service officer or a 12th-century courtier in a beautiful gown and veil. “You look at their faces and see the spark of history and think: ‘We’ve got you’ … We will find something for everyone when they’re here.”
She finds people remember the immersive history experiences the most: “It’s great to know about the battles and the kings and queens, but it’s the everyday details that people remember … kids love that people used to sleep sitting up in medieval times because there was a weird superstition that your body becomes out of line if you slept lying down … people always remember the second world war hospital because you can walk through it during an ‘air raid’.”
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Harley dresses as a 12th-century courtier to guide immersive tours
Another highlight of working at Dover Castle is that Harley gets behind-the-scenes access to some of English Heritage’s historical archives. She’s seen the menu card signed by King George V and Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay (the architect of the Dunkirk evacuation) when they visited and “weird and wonderful things like uniforms from Dover Castle, an incredible collection of diary entries, and a Roman picture with a Roman cat’s paw prints imprinted on it”.
She is currently using materials from the archives to look into life at the castle during the second world war, particularly from the perspective of women. “[The archives show] people’s opinions of the castle at this time. It’s really interesting. There was a soldier based here in the first world war, and he wrote about the bell tents they stayed in. We don’t know much about the castle in this period, but this helps us.”
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No two days are the same at the castle
Harley also enjoys the second world war events that regularly take place at the castle. “I love seeing everyone dressed up and the Spitfires going overhead. I think: ‘I’m being paid for this!’” But there are less glamorous jobs that come with looking after a historic site. “When people say they want a job at Dover Castle, I tell them you have to clean out the toilets and bins too!”
It’s this variety that keeps things interesting, though. “It’s amazing how many skills you use in this job; you use a different brain selling memberships to doing tunnel tours,” she says. “It’s just the coolest job to do.”
