Pete Graves e-mails to say the Abbot’s Cliff sound mirror was constructed by Lewis Brothers, Builders, of Dover. My father-in-law was apprenticed to Lewis’s in 1926 as a carpenter, and he worked on the wooden form-work around which the concrete for the mirror was ‘cast’. My father-in-law never visited the site and neither have my wife and I!”
My mother was a Dover Lewis. Her father and uncle were Lewis Brothers, the builders. She was brought up in a house adjoining their builder’s yard in Cherry Tree Avenue.
Lewis Brothers were general builders specialising in house building. The family also owned a Daimler garage close to the A256 and Folkestone Road roundabout.
Over the years the company had a numbers of military contracts, stretching back to the 1860’s with involvement in the construction of Fort Burgoyne, which was built to defend the northern approaches to Dover Castle. I understand that they also worked on other military sites around the town and work on the Sound Mirror fits with this.