PREPARE TO BE BOWLED DOVER...

If you hanker after the reassuring sight of the White Cliffs of Dover then a once-in-a-lifetime chance has arisen to own a historic slice of them that has been visited by both Prince Charles and Winston Churchill.

It’s a former coastguard station converted 25 years ago into tearooms and a two-bedroom apartment that, although now serving a tasty cuppa, once overlooked Hellfire Corner, the violent patch of the English Channel bombed by both English and German artillery and aircraft during the Second World War.

The site at Leathercote Point was originally bought by the Ministry of Defence in 1914 to house two huts from which Channel patrols were co-ordinated.

During the 1920s the huts were replaced by a more solid coastguard station which, as war approached during the late 1930s, had an underground operations room added and antiaircraft guns installed at its rear. The modest coastguard station played a significant role in co-ordinating the Battle of Britain, so much so that Churchill visited twice during the conflict.