Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).
Dover Castle is a medieval Castle in Dover, Kent, England. This is my favourite English castle to date and I have visited it three times during three separate visits to the UK. There is a lot to see at Dover Castle including the underground hospital that was established and used during WW2, the Roman lighthouse and a Saxon Church.
Today, I am going to show you a few of my pictures of the castle and its doors.
Hearth in the kitchen 
Dining room 
Head table 
Drapes in the dining room 
Toilet 
Doorway into the toilet
The medieval toilet was merely a hole that went down to a cesspit on the ground below. The cesspit was cleaned out by a gong farmer.
If you are keen, you can learn more about gong farmers here:
You can join in Thursday doors here: https://nofacilities.com/2021/05/27/stately-springfield-doors/
roberta-writes.com 
That is one cool castle! When I saw the first photo, I thought of Monty Python and the Holy Grail! (lol) And of course, I would hope I would never have to be a gong farmer…
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Hi Annette, I love this castle. It is my firm favourite and very authentic. Gong farming was a horrible job, but there were so many terrible jobs that it was better than some others.
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Interesting stuff, Robbie. I can imagine having a hole for a toilet invited a LOT of flies into the castle. That kitchen hearth is huge!
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Hi Priscilla, research material tends to be silent on that sort of detail [the flies] but the video indicated there were flies. I love kitchens and I thought I had taken more pictures of this one, but I couldn’t find one of the entire room. The hearth is enormous, you can stand inside it.
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It looks like an amazing place, Robbie. I’ve never been inside a castle but I would love to be able to visit one someday.
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Hi Mae, I love castles and we visit four on every trip. Fortunately, my sons also like history and visiting places of historical interest. It is lucky for them as I decide on half of the tour agenda – hehe.
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PS, there is a castle in Cape Town. I am hoping to visit CPT in December.
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That is one cool castle! When I see places like this I wonder how anyone stayed warm. I think I would be freezing all the time.
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Hi Janet, lovely to see you. That is why they had all the drapes, to help keep it warm. They had drapes hanging from all the walls.
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The day we visited Dover Castle it hailed! Out of a clear blue sky.
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Ha! That sounds just like England. We visited one summer and it was suffocatingly hot for two weeks and then it turned freezing cold and rained for two weeks. The next time we visited the UK, at the same time of year, it rained for the entire time and it was freezing by my standards. Dover Castle is amazing though.
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Thank you for sharing the photos of Dover Castle. I’ve had the opportunity to tour the castle several times and hike on top of the cliffs. The panoramic view from the castle takes my breath away every time.
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These are always so fascinating, Robbie!
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Hi John, I’m glad you enjoy these posts. I will post my pictures of the Roman lighthouse next week. That is also a very old and interesting building.
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Wow, incredible Robbie. Thank you for sharing!
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Hi Gwen, lovely to see you. It is a fabulous castle. I must look and see if I have any pictures of the underground hospital.
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I was born and grew up in Dover. The castle was a regular school trip for us and never failed to entrance us. The local museum was also a source of much historical information. I think I was lucky!
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Hi Clive, Kent is where I want to live if we ever get to the UK. I’m not sure now with all the devastation of this pandemic. SIGH! I love everything about the UK and Kent has the most amazing places to visit. Where in KEnt did you live? We used to stay near relatives in Faversham. Canterbury is my favourite city in the UK.
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I hope you can eventually realise that dream, Robbie. I was born in Dover, then when I was 18 months old my parents bought a house in Whitfield: in those days that was a nearby village, now it has expanded hugely! I also lived in Folkestone for a couple of years. You’re right about Canterbury, it is a lovely place.
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Thanks for sharing the photos from your visit, Robbie, and for reminding me that I did not have the worst job in history 😉 I hope I am able to visit a castle at some point. their construction fascinates me. The photo taken from the roof is amazing.
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Hi Dan, I am a bit of a photograph taking menace when I go anywhere. I take hundreds of pictures and keep the best of them. During medieval times, most of the jobs were awful and that continued for a long time in the UK. I always think of the girls who made matches and died of phossy jaw.
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A wonderful collection of doors , Robbie. I had never heard of a gong farmer before! Isn’t it interesting that these “farmers”, who performed the most important of tasks, were never given respects or credibility. Your post have me reviewing an abstract on JSOTR which states: “The identity literature suggests that the stigma of “dirty work” threatens the ability of occupational members to construct an esteem-enhancing social identity. However, research indicates much the opposite…We argue that the stigma of dirty work fosters development of a strong occupational or workgroup culture, which fosters (1) ideological reframing, recalibrating, and refocusing and (2) selective social comparisons and differential weighting of outsiders’ views.” This is fascinating! Thank you for this informative post, which prompted me to consider the values we place on current work.
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Hi Rebecca, I would have thought that at this time in human development most of the poorer people did unpleasant jobs. The tanners worked with excrement and urine which they used in the tanning process. I suppose that people in a common job would always group together as those are the people you mix with on a daily basis. The same as it is now. Most of my friends are writers or accountants with a smattering of doctors thrown in for good measure. Terence’s friends are all accountants.
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The castle is splendid! The job of the gong farmer, not so much. I did learn something from warching the video, though.
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I already knew quite a lot about gong farmers but I thought it might interest other people who might like to learn more. The video shares the information quite nicely. The castle is amazing.
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I wonder if there was the equivalent in the US. I don’t think so.
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Oh yes there was, Liz. They were called night soil men and here is a link to an article about it: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/when-american-cities-were-full-of-crap
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I just read the article. I had no idea! (I did know that contaminated well water caused outbreaks of disease that killed people.)
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Yes, it is so interesting to read about how we have evolved and improved things in our lives.
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The “good old days” left a lot to be desired in terms of medical care, sanitation, and personal hygiene.
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Interesting..but is there no door in that toilet?
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I think there would have been a curtain, Teresa. They haven’t hung one there now because of all the visitors.
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that looks like a terrible job!
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Yip, but I guess someone had to do it and they were well paid for doing it.
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still not sure I could do it, despite the high pay…
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Thank you for sharing the photos of Dover Castle. I’ve had the opportunity to tour the castle several times and hike on top of the cliffs. The panoramic view from the castle takes my breath away every time.
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Hi Linnea, it is a most marvelous place to visit. I have visited this one three times. The underground hospital tour is also fascinating. Thanks for visiting, I’m glad you enjoyed this post.
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Extremely spacious, but imagine trying to keep it warm.
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Hi Pete, yes it is big and that is why they had the draperies. The heavy material kept the warmth in.
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Beautiful castle, although I wouldn’t want the job of the toliet waste…ick!
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Yes, being a chartered accountant doesn’t seem so bad by comparison.
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Looks just like what a castle should be.
We are definitely spoiled by indoor plumbing. I remember as a child visiting my mother’s relatives who still had an outhouse. (K)
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Reblogged this on johnrieber and commented:
Always great history and culture….cool pictures too! Bravo Robbie!
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I didn’t get notified of this post, for some reason.
I have been to Dover Castle, and you capture it well, Robbie. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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I rather like the dinming hall in the castle. I have been to Doer Castle, but a long time ago.
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I’ve never been to a real castle so I thank you for the virtual experience, Robbie. 🙂
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My pleasure, Mark. It is interesting to see what castled looked like and how people lived in medieval times.
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I think I’d like to visit a castle or two. I remember there was a famous left handed chef – he had done some family research and found out the stairs in the turrets of his ancestors castle actually were ‘reverse’ per those who were right handed so that when sword fighting the left-handers (apparently a majority of that family) had the advantage!
Interesting about the toilets. Here there used to be a tour of an older Amish farm home. A hall led to a toilet room attached to the house with about 6 different holes… the two on the end were for children. I can’t imagine who cleaned that out! But probably family members took turns 😉
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Wonderful post. I can’t wait to get out to visit a few more places like this soon.
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What a fabulous castle! I’ve visited many across the UK, but never Dover Castle, although we’ve passed the turnoff for it many times driving down to Dover. I love the video!
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Thank you, Chris. As I mentioned, this is my favourite UK castle. It is such an important one in UK history.
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It was good to see it virtually at least!
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