What’s in a name? During the construction of the Channel Tunnel,
the area was known as Shakespeare Cliff Lower Construction
Platform. In 1994 a competition was organised by Eurotunnel and
the Dover Express to find a new name for the newest part of
England which was reclaimed from the sea. Hundreds of entries
were received, from which the judges chose Samphire Hoe. Gillian
Janaway came up with the name. Having been an English teacher,
she was familiar with Shakespeare’s King Lear. "There is a cliff
whose high and bending head looks fearfully in the confined
deep… The crows and choughs that wing the midway air scarce so
gross as beetles; halfway down hangs one that gathers samphire,
dreadful trade!". At the time that William Shakespeare was
writing King Lear he was said to have travelled regularly
through Dover. It was his familiarity with the cliffs that may
well have inspired his descriptions. To this day the first cliff
on the West side of Dover is known as Shakespeare cliff. Rock
samphire was once collected