The Romney Marsh

The Fifth Continent

Backdrop to the 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 of Levels. The geological structure of these hills is variable. In the south-west at Pett Level, steep cliffs of sandstone with clay capping occur at varying heights, but do not exceed 100 feet (30m). The hills extend north beyond Winchelsea, Rye, and Iden and include the former island of Oxney, with its very prominent headland. Three river valleys carve through the hills, the Brede, the Tillingham and the Rother, its northern arm embracing Oxney. North-east wards beyond Ham Street are degraded slopes of Wealden clay; eastwards to Hythe the hills of clay-capped limestone rise once again to 300 feet (90m) a total length of 28 miles (7.8kms)

The Embryo Marsh
The bay lying beneath these hills may once have been covered by sea water at all states of the tide. At other periods low tide may have exposed extensive salt marshes, their seaward edges fringed with shingle made up of flint gouged out of the chalk cliffs of the South Downs, broken down by sea and driven eastwards by wave action generated by the prevailing south-west winds. This process, known as long-shore drift, formed a long thin shingle shore-line across much of the very early Romney Bay behind which the marsh could develop.

Forming the Foundations
Siltation has been a major feature in the development of the marshes. Most silt is carried in from the sea; on the top of the tide, with the water relatively stilled, the suspended silt settles along the outer margins of the river and back waters of the salt marsh; it settles too in the lee of the shingle fringe which provides protection from the waves of the open sea. To the sea-bourne silt must be added that carried down by the rivers swollen by winter rains.

Changing Sea Levels
As the bay evolved, the sea level could well have been some 70 feet (21m) lower than it is today; the bed rock of the marsh can be found as deep as 100 feet (30m). Sea levels have oscillated over time, rising and falling over thousands of years. Whatever nature created within the bay or out on the shore-line will have been washed away by the sea many times. A thousand years before the Romans came, the marsh was forested, with rivers and streams running from the hills to the sea.

The Roman Era
During the Roman period the marsh was again sinking; between Stone and Appledore the river was probably flowing eastwards to the sea at near West Hythe. Here successive shore-lines of shingle, curved landward, suggested a river mouth which could clearly be identified until evidence was removed by a shingle extraction company in the 1960’s. This was the outlet of the river Limen, with a Roman port and settlement established near the Lympne of today. Following the close of the Roman era, the Limen appears to have silted up or to have become blocked by the long-shore drift of shingle. Much of Romney Marsh proper and a large area west of the Rhee Wall in Walland Marsh, including Lydd, was probably of Saxon origin.

The Calm before the Storm
By the 12th century the vulnerability of sea walls within the marsh caused concern. Grants of land carried provision for tenants to maintain the walls and waterways from damage by tidal water. Laws were passed by the 13th century for the administration of the marsh to be carried out by 24 elected men who would enforce the paying of levies or ‘scots’ for the upkeep of waterways and embankments. The expression ‘scot free’ has its origins in exemption of a person having land above marsh level. The system of levies or ‘scots’ continued until the Land Drainage Act, 1930

The 13th Century Storms
The river (which we now call the Rother) made its way south east from Appledore across the marsh to an outfall into the sea at New Romney; by the 12th century this marsh river was converted into a canal 6 miles (9.7 kms) long to Old Romney. The 13th century was remarkable for a series of storms accompanied possibly by a rise in sea level. The first was in 1236 followed in 1250 when the town and port of Old Winchelsea were overwhelmed; there was a temporary recovery until it finally succumbed in the storm of 1287 by which time the new town of Winchelsea on the hill of Iham was being colonised.