The Romney Marsh
HELP
with using
this site
In this section: the fifth continent --- marsh formation --- marsh drainage --- farming --- Dungeness power station --- Dungeness lighthouses --- churches --- Rhee wall

Marsh Formation

Romney Marsh
Romney Marsh is one of the three great marshlands of England. Nearly all this 100 square miles of flat land lies below the level of high tides. It is flanked on south and east by the sea.

 

How the Marsh was Formed
The Marsh has been formed in the 10,000 years since the last Ice Age. After the ice melted, sea leve1 rose quickly up to 6,000 years ago. The whole area of Romney Marsh was a wide sandy bay and, as sea level rose, the sea piled in layer upon layer of sand until it was about 10 metres deep.

Then a great change took place, which altered the area for ever. A massive supply of flint pebbles (known as shingle or, commercially, as gravel) which had been eroded out of the Chalk of Dorset, Hampshire and Sussex during the Ice Age, began to arrive from the south-west, and built out a great bank towards Hythe. Behind this barrier, the sandy bay became salt marsh, with fresh-water swamp in the valleys.

Since then the outer coastline, consisting of massive barriers of shingle, has been continually changing, and so have the tidal inlets which once provided harbours near Hythe, Romney and Rye.