Rye Castle Museum

This series of articles This series includes articles on various aspects of Romney March  history.  If you scroll down you will find pages  on  ‘the Fifth Continent’,  marsh formation and draining,  farming on the marsh, the Rhee Wall  and   also on Dungeness and its power station and lighthouses.   Next will come a feature on the Romney Marsh churches..  There will … read more

  <>    Still Standing on the Marsh  Fourteen medieval churches still stand on the Marsh. There were more but these have either vanished or fallen into disrepair. Examples of these are Blackmanstone Church, which appears in the Domesday Book, but has since disappeared, Orgarswick which is now a mound and the church at Broomhill which … read more

by Cliff Bloomfield             Backdrop to Romney Marsh 10,000 years ago the waves of the sea were eroding the Wealden hills and river valleys, creating the long curving coastline that is the backdrop to Romney Marsh, which includes Romney Marsh proper, Denge, Walland Guldeford and Pett Marshes and a number … read more

How the Marsh was Formed By Jill Eddison 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.      Origins The Marsh has been formed in the 10,000 years … read more

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 … read more

By Jill Eddison Farming on the Marsh through the Ages Land-use in the Saxon period must have been use of salt-marsh as pasture, which would have continued after parts of the Marsh had been ”inned”. Around 1200, the demands of a dense and rising population meant that much of the Marsh was used as arable. … read more

Dungeness and Dungeness Power Station                                                                    � In 1965 the first nuclear power station at this site , Dungeness A, was in operation. By 1983 Dungeness B, an advanced gas cooled reactor was producing power for homes, schools and factories. On a typical day, the power stations now produce 30 million kilowatt hours of electricity – enough … read more

Preventing Shipwrecks  By the 1600’s Dungeness was a huge foreland of shingle, extensive enough to cause numerous shipwrecks, with much loss of life and cargo. It is thought that a Rye Jeweller , John Allen, first suggested a warning light be set up on the point, but he lacked the necessary funds, and the idea … read more

 The Rhee ‘Wall’ The so-called Rhee Wall crosses the whole width of the Marsh, running 7.5 miles from Appledore to New Romney . It consists of two parallel earth banks some 50 metres apart east of Snargate, widening to about 100 metres apart west of that. The ground between these banks is raised well above … read more