How the port of Dover is laid out
The harbour is a square mile of enclosed water held between the Admiralty Pier on the west and the Eastern Arm below the castle, completed as the Admiralty Harbour in 1909. Two quite separate areas grew up inside it, and anyone arriving needs to know which one they are heading for.
The Eastern Docks, tucked under the white cliffs at the foot of Castle Hill, are Dover ferry port proper. Everything to do with cross-Channel car, coach and lorry traffic happens here: the check-in booths, the border controls and the berths for the ships. The Western Docks, on the other side of the bay, hold the cruise terminals on the Admiralty Pier, the marina and the cargo berths. The two are linked by the road along the seafront, but they have separate entrances and there is no reason for a ferry passenger to go near the Western Docks at all.
Dover ferry port has grown from a very small start. In the late 1920s Captain Townsend began a car ferry service from the Camber, a little enclosed basin in the corner of the harbour, with cars lifted aboard by crane. In 1953, when 117,000 vehicles a year were already using the port, a car ferry terminal opened at the Eastern Docks and roll-on, roll-off traffic began. Land has been reclaimed again and again since then for berths and holding lanes, which is why the curving viaduct that carries the A2 down to the dock gates, built partly in the sea in 1977, now stands entirely on dry land. The full story is on the page about the Eastern Docks, and the longer history of the harbour on Dover Harbour: a brief history.
Freight and holiday traffic share the docks almost equally. In 2014 the port handled more than 13 million passengers, about 2.5 million tourist cars and just over 2.4 million lorries, and inside the dock gates the lorry lanes are kept apart from the car lanes. The best place to see the whole layout at once is from above. The cliff top at Langdon looks straight down on the ferry berths, while the Western Heights, on the other side of the valley, look across the entire harbour from the Admiralty Pier to the Eastern Arm. At street level, behind the dual carriageway and the dock fences, very little of the water can be seen.
How long is the ferry from Dover to Calais, and to Dunkirk?
Dover is closer to continental Europe than any other point in Britain. At its narrowest the Strait is only about 21 miles wide, and on a clear day the French coast is plainly visible from the cliffs. That short distance is the whole reason the port exists.
The ferry from Dover to Calais takes roughly 90 minutes from port to port.
The Dover to Dunkirk ferry crosses a longer stretch of sea further along the French coast and takes roughly two hours. Exact sailing times, the number of daily departures and fares are set by the ferry operators and change through the year; they are not given here. The operators serving each route are listed by the Port of Dover, which also publishes current travel advice.
What matters more for planning is the time spent before boarding. Passengers heading for France go through French border controls in Dover itself, before they reach the ship, so passport checks happen on the English side. Add the operator's check-in deadline, and at busy times queues on the approach roads, and a 90-minute crossing can sit inside a much longer stretch of time at the port. Operators state how early drivers and foot passengers must arrive. Those deadlines matter.
The arrangement works the same way in reverse. Travellers coming to Britain from Calais or Dunkirk pass through British border controls on the French side before they board, so on arrival at Dover vehicles can usually drive off the ship, out of the dock gates and straight onto the A20 or the A2. For many visitors the first sight of the country is from the deck: the castle on its hill, the chalk on either side and the Eastern Docks spread out beneath the cliff, much as cross-Channel travellers have seen it for centuries.
Foot passengers are not carried on every route or by every operator, and the arrangements for them differ from those for cars. Anyone travelling without a vehicle should check with the operator before booking.
Crossings were not always this measured. The SRN4 hovercraft of the 1970s and 1980s reached Calais in about 35 minutes, and the record, set by the Princess Anne in September 1995, was 22 minutes. The seacats that replaced the hovercraft in 2000 took around 45 minutes. At the other extreme, Captain Matthew Webb, who dived off the Admiralty Pier in August 1875 to become the first person to swim the Channel, was in the water for nearly 22 hours. The hovercraft and Captain Webb pages tell both stories.
Arriving by road: the M20, the A20 and the A2
Two main roads bring traffic to Dover, and each delivers it to a different side of town. From London and the M25, the M20 runs past Ashford to Folkestone, where it becomes the A20. The A20 drops into Dover past the Western Heights and follows the seafront along Townwall Street to the Eastern Docks. From the Medway towns and Canterbury, the M2 becomes the A2, which crosses the downs to the north of the town and descends to the dock gates by the Jubilee Way viaduct, opened in 1977 to take ferry traffic out of the town centre.
Signs for Dover ferry port and the Eastern Docks are clear from both approaches, and drivers bound for the ferry do not need to go into the town centre at all. At peak times, especially at the start of school holidays and on summer weekends, queues can build back along both roads. They can be long. Traffic management schemes on the M20 and the A20 are used to hold freight traffic when the port is under pressure, and they can slow everything else down too. The Port of Dover and the national roads authority publish live information on the day.
Snargate Street is a reminder of how much the roads have changed the town. Once one of Dover's main commercial streets, it is now an access road beside the dual carriageway leading to the docks, its surviving buildings looking out across the traffic to the harbour.
Trains to Dover Priory
Dover Priory is the town's only railway station. It opened on 22 July 1861 as the temporary terminus of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway, was renamed in 1863 after the nearby remains of St Martin's Priory, and became the only station in Dover in 1994 when the Marine Station on the Admiralty Pier closed. The history of the station and the lines into it is told on the pages about Dover Priory Station and the railways in Dover.
Since December 2009 high-speed trains have run from Dover Priory to London St Pancras, joining the high-speed line built for the Channel Tunnel services at Ashford International. Slower services follow the two historic main lines: one by way of Folkestone and Ashford, the old South Eastern route, and one by way of Canterbury East and the Medway towns, the old London, Chatham and Dover route to London Victoria. A local line also runs north along the coast to Deal and Sandwich. Running times and timetables are published by the train operator and National Rail and change with each timetable revision.
There is no rail link to the ferry terminal. Foot passengers arriving at Dover Priory make the last part of the trip to the Eastern Docks by road, so the connection should be planned in advance rather than left to chance on arrival.
The Dover cruise terminal
Dover cruise terminal is on the Admiralty Pier in the Western Docks, well away from the ferry traffic. The first terminal occupies the old Marine Station, the grand railway station built on reclaimed land between 1909 and 1914, where generations of boat-train passengers changed from the Golden Arrow and other Continental trains to the steamers. After rail services ended in 1994 the building was converted, reopening as a cruise liner terminal two years later. It proved popular enough that a second terminal was built further along the widened pier extension and opened in 2000.
Parking in Dover
Drivers heading for the ferry do not need to park at all: the check-in lanes are inside the Eastern Docks. For everyone else, parking in Dover splits into a few distinct places. The town centre has public pay-and-display car parks run by the district council, signed from the A20 and the A2, and the council publishes their locations and charges. Dover Castle has its own car park for visitors at the top of Castle Hill. On the cliffs, the National Trust car park at the White Cliffs visitor centre on Langdon Cliffs is the usual starting point for the cliff-top walk, and Samphire Hoe, west of the town, has its own car park at the foot of the cliffs. Parking at St Margaret's Bay is limited and fills early on fine summer days.
Car parks on the cliffs and in the town can be full by late morning in the summer holidays, so an early start helps. Drivers of motorhomes and high vehicles should look out for height barriers at the entrances and check the signs before turning in. Charges, opening times and any restrictions are set by the operators of each car park and change from time to time, so they are not given here. Parking for cruise passengers for the length of a voyage is a separate matter, arranged through the cruise line or the port.
Weather, busy days and where to check
The Strait is exposed, and strong winds occasionally delay or cancel sailings. The sea has the final say. Summer Saturdays, bank holiday weekends and the first days of the school holidays are the busiest times at the port, while midweek crossings outside the holidays are usually calmer in every sense. For anything that changes, from sailing times to road closures and queue warnings, the operators and the Port of Dover are the sources to rely on.
For anyone with time to spend in the town before or after crossing, the guide to things to do in Dover gathers the castle, the cliffs and the seafront in one place. Calais itself, as a day out from Dover, is covered in day trips and the year in Dover.