Carol Ann Duffy has celebrated the “glittering breastplate” of Dover’s White Cliffs in a poem to mark the success of a public appeal by the National Trust to buy one of the last stretches of the national landmark that was still in private ownership. The poet laureate’s poem evokes Julius Caesar, Shakespeare and Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach.  The National Trust appeal raised £1.2m in just 133 days – and before its December deadline - after more than 16,000 donations from organisations and individuals.

The appeal was supported by celebrities including Dame Judi Dench and Dame Vera Lynn, whose wartime recording of (There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover became her greatest hit.