Home >
History >
Romney Marsh >
Romney Marsh History
River Rother | Reclamation of Land | Windfarm | Sheep | More Facts
The Romney Marsh is a sparsely-populated wetland area in the counties of Kent and East Sussex in the south-east of England. It covers about 100 square miles (260 km²).
The River Rother
The River Rother today flows into the sea below Rye; but until 1287 its mouth lay between Romney and Lydd. The river mouth was wide with a huge lagoon making Rye a port at its western end. That lagoon lay behind a large island, which now makes up a large part of the Denge Marsh, on which stood the ports of Lydd and the old Winchelsea. All these ports were members of the Cinque Ports.
Reclamation
The Romney Marsh has been gradually built up over the centuries. The most significant feature of the Marsh is the Rhee wall (Rhee is a word for river), forming a prominent ridge. This feature was extended in three stages from Appledore to New Romney in the 13th century as a waterway. Sluices controlled the flow of water, which was then released to flush silt from the harbour at New Romney. Ultimately the battle was lost, the harbour silted up and New Romney declined in importance, however, the Rhee kept part of the old port open until the 15th century.
The wall at Dymchurch was built around the same time, storms had breached the shingle barrier, which had protected it until that time. It is a common fallacy that both these structures were built by the Romans.
In 1250 and in following years, a series of violent storms broke through the coastal shingle banks, flooding significant areas and returning it to marsh, destroying the harbour at New Romney, and in 1287 finally destroying the port town of Old Winchelsea (now located some two miles (3 km) out in Rye bay), which had been under threat from the sea since at least 1236. Winchelsea, the third largest port in England and a major importer of wine, was relocated on higher land, with a harbour consisting of 82 wharfs. Those same storms, however, helped to build up more shingle: such beaches now ran along practically the whole seaward side of the marshland.
In 1462 the Romney Marsh Corporation was established to install drainage and sea defences for the marsh, which it continued to build into the 16th century. By the 16th century the course of the Rother had been changed to its channel today, and most of the remainder of the area had now been reclaimed from the sea.
The shingle continues to be deposited. As a result all the original Cinque Ports of the Marsh are now far from the sea. Dungeness point is still being added to: although (especially near Dungeness and Hythe) a daily operation is in place to counter the reshaping of the shingle banks, using boats to dredge and move the drifting shingle.
Windfarm
A windfarm will be developed at a site called Little Cheyne Court near Camber. It will be built by N-power renewables and cost around £50m. The 26, 116 m towers (380 ft), will be distributed over an area of 4 km² and will generate a proportion of the district's electricity needs. - The site has proved controversial, opposed by parish, district and county councils, the local MP and other groups as detrimental to the visual appearance of the Marsh and a threat to wildlife. However, they were overruled by Central Government and work is due to start in 2007.
The issue is one of siting, not whether or not windfarms are a good idea.
Romney Marsh sheep
The economy and landscape of Romney Marsh in the 19th Century was dominated by sheep. Improved methods of pasture management and husbandry meant the marsh could sustain a stock density greater than anywhere else in the world. The Romney Marsh sheep became one of the most successful and important breeds of sheep. Their main characteristic is an ability to feed in wet situations; they are considered to be more resistant to foot rot and internal parasites than any other breed. Romney sheep have been exported globally, in particular to Australia, to where they were first exported in 1872.
Malaria
From 1564 the health of the marsh population suffered from malaria, then known as ague or marsh fever, which caused high mortality rates until the 1730s, although it remained a major problem until the completion of the Royal Military Canal in 1806, which greatly improved the drainage of the area, reduced its importance.
With five indigenous mosquitoes capable of being hosts for the malarial parasite it is only the Anopheles atroparvus specie which breeds (at present) in sufficient numbers here to be act as an efficient vector. However, P. vivax likes brackish waters and with the recreation the old coastal wetlands coming into favour, this could expand the a future malarial parasite host reserve still further. Therefore, together with this and the average temperatures in England increasing again, it may be possible to see English Malaria successfully re-establish in the marshes once more.
The Marsh in war
Throughout its history, the proximity of the marsh to the European mainland has meant that the areas has been in the front line whenever invasion has threatened. In AD 892 one such invasion was successful. The Danish fleet of 250 ships sailed right into the Rother and took the fortress at Appledore (allegedly built by King Arthur), which they destroyed.
Royal Military Canal
The Royal Military Canal stretches for 28 miles hugging the old cliff line that borders the Romney Marsh from Hythe in the north east to Cliff End in the south west. It was completed in April 1809.
The Martello Towers
Martello Towers are fortifications that were built by the British Army for coastal defence during the nineteenth century. Seventy-four towers were built along the south coast; Tower 1 was at Folkestone, overlooking the harbour, and Tower 74 guarded the beach at Seaford in East Sussex. They were built between 1805 and 1808.
Smuggling
The flat, almost empty landscape made for a smuggler's paradise throughout the 17th, 18th and into the 19th centuries. The traffic was two-way, since wool was also smuggled to the Continent.
The Victorians made smugglers into romantic anti-heroes; in truth they were unscrupulous villains. The two main gangs on the Marsh were the Owlers and The Aldington Gang, known also as The Blues.
Sources: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)
