1. In a 2005 survey of Radio Times readers, the White Cliffs were voted the third greatest natural wonder in Britain - after the Dan-yr-Ogof cave complex in the upper Swansea Valley, which came first, and Cheddar Gorge.

2. Noel Coward lived in St Margarets, a seaside village set on the White Cliffs of Dover that is the closest part of England to the European mainland. The dramatist, actor and composer bought the house White Cliffs from his friend in 1945 and painted many local scenes.

3. Sir Walter Ralegh, when pleading with Elizabeth I for cash to renovate the Port of Dover, said, " No promontory town or haven of Christendom is so placed by nature and situation both to gratify friends and annoy enemies as this your Majesties Town of Dover."

4. Because of its stretegic position, Dover is known as the "lock and key of England". It gets its name from the stream which runs through the town, called the Dour.

5. Dover is the busiest passenger ferry terminal in the world and the busiest cruise liner terminal in Britain.

6. The first known inhabitants of Dover's River Dour valley were late Stone Age farmers who reached the area by boat about 6,000 years ago.

7. Dover is one of the five ports known as the Cinque Ports - along with Sandwich, Hastings, Romney and Hythe. They were joined together in around 1050 to provide ships and men for the King, Edward the Confessor, and in return received rights and privileges. Today their role is ceremonial.

8. Several Saxon timber buildings have also been found in the centre of Dover.

9. In July 2006, Little Britain star David Walliams swam the Channel from Dover to Calais in ten-and-a-half hours, raising several hundred thousand pounds for Sport Relief.

10 During the first world war, regular shelling from warships and bombing from aeroplanes forced Dover's residents to shelter in caves and dug-outs. The town became known as "Fortress Dover" and was put under martial law.