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Samphire Hoe Country Park

 

 
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Samphire Hoe Country Park
 
 
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Samphire Hoe Country Park is a country park
Country park

A country park is an area designated for people to visit and enjoy recreation in a countryside environment....
 situated 3 kilometres west of Dover
Dover

Dover is a town and major ferry port in the county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel....
, Kent
Kent

Kent is a Counties of England in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the River Thames estuary....
, England . The park was created by using 4.9 million cubic metres of chalk
Chalk

Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. It forms under relatively deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....
 marl
Marl

Marl or Marlstone is a calcium carbonate or lime-rich mud or mudstone which contains variable amounts of clays and aragonite. Marl is originally an old term loosely applied to a variety of materials, most of which occur as loose, earthy deposits consisting chiefly of an intimate mixture of clay and calcium carbonate, formed under...
 from the Channel Tunnel
Channel Tunnel

The Channel Tunnel , also known by the portmanteau Chunnel, is a undersea rail transport tunnel linking Folkestone, Kent, Kent in England with Coquelles near Calais in northern France beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover....
 excavations and is found at the bottom of a section of the White Cliffs of Dover
White cliffs of Dover

The white cliffs of Dover are cliffs which form part of the Great Britain coastline facing the Strait of Dover and France. The cliffs are part of the North Downs formation....
. The site is owned by Eurotunnel
Eurotunnel

Groupe Eurotunnel S.A. manages and operates the Channel Tunnel between the United Kingdom and France. The Company operates the Eurotunnel Shuttle services and earns revenue on other trains passing through the tunnel....
 Ltd., and managed by the White Cliffs Countryside Project.

hire Hoe is named after the rock samphire
Rock samphire

Samphire or rock samphire, Crithmum maritimum, is the sole species of the genus Crithmum. It is an edible wild plant found in coastal regions of mainland Great Britain....
 that was once collected from the Dover cliffs; its fleshy green leaves were picked in May and pickled in barrels of brine and sent to London, where it was served as a dish to accompany meat.






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Samphire Hoe Country Park is a country park
Country park

A country park is an area designated for people to visit and enjoy recreation in a countryside environment....
 situated 3 kilometres west of Dover
Dover

Dover is a town and major ferry port in the county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel....
, Kent
Kent

Kent is a Counties of England in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the River Thames estuary....
, England . The park was created by using 4.9 million cubic metres of chalk
Chalk

Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. It forms under relatively deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....
 marl
Marl

Marl or Marlstone is a calcium carbonate or lime-rich mud or mudstone which contains variable amounts of clays and aragonite. Marl is originally an old term loosely applied to a variety of materials, most of which occur as loose, earthy deposits consisting chiefly of an intimate mixture of clay and calcium carbonate, formed under...
 from the Channel Tunnel
Channel Tunnel

The Channel Tunnel , also known by the portmanteau Chunnel, is a undersea rail transport tunnel linking Folkestone, Kent, Kent in England with Coquelles near Calais in northern France beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover....
 excavations and is found at the bottom of a section of the White Cliffs of Dover
White cliffs of Dover

The white cliffs of Dover are cliffs which form part of the Great Britain coastline facing the Strait of Dover and France. The cliffs are part of the North Downs formation....
. The site is owned by Eurotunnel
Eurotunnel

Groupe Eurotunnel S.A. manages and operates the Channel Tunnel between the United Kingdom and France. The Company operates the Eurotunnel Shuttle services and earns revenue on other trains passing through the tunnel....
 Ltd., and managed by the White Cliffs Countryside Project.

Origin of the name

Samphire Hoe is named after the rock samphire
Rock samphire

Samphire or rock samphire, Crithmum maritimum, is the sole species of the genus Crithmum. It is an edible wild plant found in coastal regions of mainland Great Britain....
 that was once collected from the Dover cliffs; its fleshy green leaves were picked in May and pickled in barrels of brine and sent to London, where it was served as a dish to accompany meat. A 'hoe' is a piece of land which sticks out into the sea.

History and construction of the area

The cliffs above the current park were blown up with gunpowder in 1843 to aid the creation of the Dover to Folkestone
Folkestone

Folkestone is the principal town in the Shepway District of Kent, England. Its original site lay in a stream valley in the cliffs here; and its subsequent development was through fishing and its proximity to the Europe as a landing place and trading port....
 railway. In 1880 an attempt was made from the site to create a tunnel that would pass under the English Channel
English Channel

The English Channel is an Arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest, to only in the Strait of Dover....
 but it failed shortly afterwards. In 1895 a coal mine was sunk there but this closed in 1921 after being very unsuccessful.
In the 1980s the site was chosen as the one deemed most suitable out of 60 proposed to dump chalk from Channel Tunnel excavations and work began on it in 1988. As the 30 hectares that make up the park were totally reclaimed from the sea the first job to be completed was the building of walls in the sea to create an artificial lagoon
Lagoon

A lagoon is a body of comparatively shallow sea water or brackish water separated from the deeper sea by a shallow or exposed Bar , reef, or similar feature....
. It was completed in 1994 and opened by Queen Elizabeth II and President François Mitterrand
François Mitterrand

Fran?ois Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand served as President of France from 1981 to 1995, elected as representative of the French Socialist Party ....
. It became open to the public in 1997.

Tourism

The park now attracts around 110,000 visitors per year. Walking, cycling, angling
Angling

Angling is a method of fishing by means of an "angle" .The hook is usually attached by a fishing line to a fishing rod. A Float such as a Float is sometimes used....
 on the sea wall and bird watching
Bird Watching

Bird Watching is a British magazine for birders. The current editor is Kevin Wilmot....
 are some of the activities available. The park is open between 7am and dusk
Dusk

Dusk is the beginning of darkness in the evening. It is often confused with sunset, which is the daily disappearance of the sun below the horizon....
 admittance is free and car parking is £1. It is very wheelchair friendly and an education room is available for school use.

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