Rye Castle Museum

by Jill Eddison

Reclamation and Occupation

The whole Marsh is sub-divided into several different smaller marshes, each of which was reclaimed at a different time.
The map shows the division into Romney Marsh proper, Walland Marsh, Denge Marsh, Pett Level, and the Rother Levels.

Denge Marsh

Saxon land-charters show that Denge Marsh, which was surrounded on three sides by massive shingle banks, was occupied in Saxon times.
 

Romney Marsh Proper

The Domesday Book shows that by 1086 the whole of Romney Marsh Proper was occupied. Domesday recorded most of the churches now known there (and a few which cannot be identified now). At this time, that area was still protected from the sea on the east by a great shingle bank. So it is unlikely that any major sea-walls were needed. To the south lay salt-marsh which probably provided fish and sea-birds to augment the local diet, and reeds and rushes for houses.

Walland Marsh

None of the churches on Walland Marsh are mentioned in Domesday Book, and it was only to cope with the demand for new land caused by a sharply rising population that the frontier of colonisation moved south-west across Walland Marsh.
In the 13th century the sea broke down the shingle barrier which had previously extended across the present area of Rye Bay, from Fairlight to Dungeness. This defended the south side of the Marsh against the sea. The old town and port of Winchelsea (which stood on the shingle barrier somewhere off the present mouth of the Rother) was washed away between 1249 and 1280, and in 1280 king Edward I, ordered three senior officials to establish a new town on ”the hill of Iham”.

This is the town of Winchelsea we know today.
Sea-floods in the 1200s and 1300s checked southward colonisation, and the Black Death in 1349 brought demand for new land to an end. Then, between 1400 and 1700 salt-marshes were reclaimed for sheep pasture in connection with the Wealden woollen industry, so that by 1700 the map of Walland Marsh was similar to that of today.

This section describes how it was done, and what the result is:

Reclamation (”Inning”), Sea Walls and Drainage

As soon as people occupied any part of the Marsh on a year-round basis, they needed to construct an earth bank to keep spring tides and storms out. They also needed to drain rain water away through a sluice, and to keep the drainage channels and ditches clear.

Over the centuries, more and more land was ”inned” in this way.
At the same time, the sea gradually moved the protective shingle banks away, and it became necessary to construct sea walls:

-  The Dymchurch Wall was built before 1500
-  The Broomhill/Camber Wall was built in 1600s
-  The Pett Wall was built in the 1950s

Half the coastline is now protected by these walls.

Inland

 The marsh is criss-crossed by an essential network of drainage channels and ditches. Every main drain (known as a ‘sewer’) has an outlet through a sluice to the sea at both ends. This means that if one outlet becomes blocked, or the sluice needs to be repaired, then water can still drain away through the other end.